The meeting over and having just left the Rocket Corporation office building, Samuel and Anya were trying to find a place to eat, they both had become quite hungry missing their lunch before the hours long session with Giovanni. Trying to find a place that accepts Pokémon as customers, they had asked some of the locals, but no one seemed to know where to find one.

  "Man, at this rate we might as well go into a market and buy a berry or two for our late lunch" Samuel lamented out loud.

  "[Might as well]" Anya chirped tiredly, being hungry had considerably reduced her mood, especially after the long mentally taxing negotiations with Giovanni.

  Luck seemed to be on their side as a young trainer happened to hear Samuel.

  "Heey, there is a place a small distance from here, if you follow this road, take the next left and head straight until you come across a small playground, then take another left on that corner. There should be a small recently opened restaurant, which according to their signs feeds Pokémon too" the young trainer stopped them to give advice.

  "Thank you young man for your recommendation, that is very kind of you" Samuel said

  "No worries old man, I just like to support local business" he waved off Samuel's thanks

  Even Anya chirped her thanks to the young trainer along with a curtsy. This caught the young trainer off guard and Samuel gave a laugh while Anya too giggled a bit, some of the tension she was keeping finally leaving her body.

  "You should come see me at Pallet if you find yourself there someday" Samuel smiled "I live in the southernmost house on top of a hill, you can't miss it"

  "Once again thank you for your help, we should get going" With those parting words, they both followed the instruction the trainer had left them with.

  Soon arriving at the corner of the playground where a group of children were actively running around, playing tag with their parents keeping watchful eye on the happening while casually conversing with each other. The area was surrounded by tall recently build apartment buildings, it was quite uncommon place for a restaurant to set up shop in thought Samuel. True to the trainers words, they could see the restaurant's sign a hundred or so meters away after passing the corner.

  "Huh, Meowth's Lantern, looks quite cozy" said Samuel as he took a closer look inside the restaurant. Below the restaurants name and the logo of a Meowth holding an old oil lantern in its paws was a string of text written in Kantonese, stating that the restaurant will cater to reasonably sized Pokémon as long as they are well behaved, below the text was a drawing of a Machoke with circle over it next to a crossed out Snorlax.

  Once inside they were met with a quiet atmosphere only couple of the tables were occupied, in one of them was a trainer who had her Ekans out and coiled next to her enjoying their dinner together. The tables were laid on the edges of the room, some of them were surrounded by a half circle bench, leaving the walkway unobstructed while others had a mixture of a chairs, stools and benches. The waitress came to greet them and asked if Anya was the only Pokémon dining, taking a quick look at Anya, she then guided them to a table with a quarter circle bench with a pair of stools. "If you don't find these seats satisfactory, we have a more traditional tatami cabinet also available."

  Samuel took a quick look at Anya who had seated herself on a stool, noticing him she gave him a nod.

  "These do just fine, thank you" giving the waitress his signature smile.

  After handing over the menu for the both of them, the waitress took her leave after asking for their of drinks, saying she will be right back with the drinks and to take their orders.

  Opening the menu and looking through the list of foods, Anya was glad to see that the menu wasn't too complicated with most if not all of the items on the list had an accompanied picture of what it would look like. It was shame that the whole thing was written in Kantonese, she would have liked to read what each of the items exactly included. She wasn't picky when it came to food, but food for Pokémon were entirely too unappetizing to her, when the waitress came back with the drinks and for their order, she was still undecided between two of the salad options.

  Running out of time as the waiter had done taking Samuel's order and she was waiting for her to decide, the awkward pressure being cast upon her by her own indecision.

  Finally deciding on what she would have, no exact reasoning behind her decision, going with her gut feeling and wanting the moment to end. She looked at the waiter, who was smiling back at her expectantly and pointed at the menu item with her cutter, the waiter giddily confirmed her order, finding Anya's antics amusing.

  "So, the meeting with Giovanni" Samuel said to break the silence "Or the whole contract itself seemed weird to me, the pay and benefits are way higher than any average worker would or should get. Even if part of the pay will be taken to provide you with accommodation and other tools to manage your working efficiency such as specially made typewriter and chair for example. Most of the expenses will most likely go toward your standard living comforts, depending solely if the apartment you will be given is pre-furnished or not." Anya agreed with Samuel he made a good point.

  "I have a bad feeling about the whole direction this is go- Ahh Thank you" He was interrupted by the waitress who brought them their food orders "Now where was I, ahh yes, something strikes me suspicious about Giovanni, especially after what you might or might not implied before or it all could be my mind playing tricks on me with the failsafe letter thing"

  The plate of food in front of Samuel looked appetizing to Anya, she did not know what Samuel did order as she had been busy with her own order, what was on his plate looked like a juicy piece of fish along with mashed potatoes and some kind of sauce on top. It wasn't a traditional Kantonian cuisine as far as Anya knew.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  They both ate in silence, enjoying their meals, Anya had to use some creative thinking and applied a layer of silk on her cutter to held the cutlery, it felt wrong to either just eat straight from the plate or to use her cutters to pick up the food. "[This could have been so embarrassing if I didn't learn some of these tricks]" she said out loud

  "What was that?" Samuel asked only to be waved off by Anya. The food disappeared as quickly as it came, both having to have skipped lunch figuratively inhaled the food.

  Samuel paid for the food and they soon were on the way back home, the days were getting shorter, darkness already crept all over the place, a sign that the winter was soon on its way, "[A year, huh]" said Anya somberly as she remembered that it was on the cusp of winter when she arrived into this world.

  Opting for a faster travel time and not wanting to fly in the dark, Samuel released Alakazam and asked him to teleport them back to pallet, with a wave of his spoons the world twisted and they found themselves back in front of the laboratory.

  Saying her thanks to the Alakazam who quietly gave her a nod and recalled himself back to his Pokéball. Something that had bothered Anya for a long time, was that Samuel's Pokémon team were all very inwardly oriented and prefered to stay in their Pokéball most if not all of the time, she couldn't even remember having any conversation with anyone on his team before, only his Dragonite had showed some social interactions, but Anya wasn't sure if that was Dragonite's instinct for caring about others as she remembered the Pokédex entry stating that the species is known for rescuing drowning people and Pokémon, she was not sure how correct it was, she remembered hearing about a theory that explained the reason Dragonite rescued people at sea was to prevent them ever finding their home island, she could ask Samuel about it someday.

  "You coming?" asked Samuel from the door, keeping it open for her.

  "[Coming]" she chirped and followed him inside.

  Once inside, walking through the laboratory area which was slowly getting filled with relevant stuff, books, papers and folders lining the once empty shelves and some large machine resembling a Pokémon healing station at the back wall, its true purpose eluded Anya as it had the same general design as some of the machinery at the Pokémon Center.

  "Curious about those?" Samuel asked when he noticed Anya looking at the devices, he continued talking before Anya could even reply "That machine is called the Vault, it act as a secure storage device for Poké balls and Pokémon inside them" he said as he pointed at a large grayish device that had a single hole bit larger than a minimized Pokéball on the side and a some sort of interface on top with a large keyboard. "Using the keyboard I can easily find the stored Pokémon for retrieval" he demonstrated how the machine worked by pressing few of the buttons and hitting what Anya would assume would be enter, the machine came to life, some whirring later a Poke ball appeared on the hole.

  Pushing the Poké ball back in the machine whirred again, depositing the ball back inside. "This is made by a close friend of mine Bill, it is still a work in progress and I volunteered to test it out for him, it has the capacity to hold around 900ish Poké balls."

  The name ring a bell for Anya, she remembered that Bill was the person who designed the Pokémon box system and this was most likely either a predecessor for the digital storage system. She wondered how much the digitalization of Pokémon is going to change how things run, she didn't remember how it went exactly in the Pokémon games, anime and movies, being able to transport Pokémon from one end to another in a matter of seconds no matter the distance would be a huge deal to most of the people.

  Samuel was explaining Anya some of the inner workings of the device itself, even if Anya didn't understand what he was talking about, she still listened him talk. Samuel seemed to enjoy talking and explaining about the mechanism inside, how it sorts and stores the balls inside hard metallic casing, Bill had explained to Samuel how it works in intricate detail, the safety of the Pokémon was the first priority in such machinery, it even had an emergency release mechanism for Poké ball malfunction.

  It took a moment and Samuel was already explaining the machine next to the vault, this one he called scanner, it wasn't as mechanically intricate as the Vault, even if the machine was a lot taller, almost 2 meters in height, hourglass like design with a single slot for a Poké ball in the center of it all. It was all connected to a single screen and keyboard combination, Samuel even gave Anya a look of Faesol's past scan results, even if she couldn't understand anything that was shown on the screen and nodded to anything Samuel tried to explain to her. Anya didn't mind at all, she was happy to see the passion Samuel had towards his job, even if he had not really admitted it.

  "You can't understand any of this" he said apologetically as he remembered that Anya could only read Unown script.

  "[Here]" said a familiar voice as Faesol came into the lab displeased. "[You are back and I am hungry, feed me, now]" she said in a demanding voice, even Samuel understood the message and scurried off upstairs.

  "[Couldn't you just use you psychic powers to get food if you are hungry?]" asked Anya

  "[And do it myself? If I have someone else to do it for me, why should I bother?]" Faesol answered with a smug grin on her face.

  -----------------------------------------

  "[What do you mean, I can't come with you?!]" Faesol shouted out loud agitated

  "[Like I said before, I am moving to Viridian and I believe you would be much more comfortable here with Samuel]"

  "[I bet, he could even train you and make you strong, he was the latest champion]"

  Faesol took a moment to think, she weighted the advantages of having an ex-champion train her in the art of Pokémon battles and compared it to taking it easy with Anya and observing her daily shenanigans, although for whatever the reason Anya had for turning her down, she was still convinced that Anya would still have some time for her and they would make it work as they had done in the past. Faesol did not know what 9 to 5 office week meant, it must have been some sort of weird Human thing, there was a lot of things she still didn't understand about Human customs and culture.

  "[It is not that long period, the contract is for two years, after that, we will have to see]" Anya tried to further convince the distraught feline.

  "[I don't care about any of that, I just want to stay with you]" She said while clinging to Anya's feet

  "[Now now, it's not like I am totally gone for two years, I'll come visit when I have the time. We will have to just iron the details out with Samuel]"

  "[Samuel is a good person, I know he will take good care of you, even if he can seem busy at times with his lab work]"