“Look, you don’t really mean all of that, right?” Viol says to Vanille. She had just let off some steam about her feelings about him, thinking she was talking to Teej. “I mean, he’s your brother, right?”
“Yeah, I know,” Vanille says a bit bitterly. “I just wish I could be myself sometimes, but I feel like either I get overshadowed by his bullshit all the time or that it’s always the two of us. When do I get a chance to fly solo on my own terms? I’m the older one but I don’t even get any attention without him screwing it up all the time.”
“I see,” Viol says, a pit forming in his stomach. Was he really that much of a jerk to her. I mean, yeah they competed and he looked out for her, but was he really just the annoying brother to her?
“Umm, I’m sorry for talking like this,” Vanille says a bit sullenly. “I’m sure I look like a real kid whining about needing attention.”
“N-no, it’s…” Viol began looking for the right words. “It’s fine, Van.”
“Before you came along to ask me to the dance, all I really had to talk to was Viol,” Vanille says. “Viol protected me a lot and babied me. The few times others would come to talk he’d be there to shoo them away, or get them to go away so they didn’t bother me. It was nice to have him around protecting me, making me feel special. I never really asked for his help, but he gave it. I feel he knew me enough to know I was a bit too timid to ask for help myself.”
Viol smiled a bit listening to his sister open up.
“But he started trying to impress dad for a while and spent less time with me. It was okay, it gave me time to grow up a bit, toughen up without having to be coddled by him. I still had the socialization skills of a brick, but I had the freedom to do what I wanted without having to go with him all the time. I grew to love contests, and slot machines, and on the weekends I’d even hatch eggs, not for competitive reasons but just to get some shiny Pokemon that I could raise.”
“Viol would sometimes spend time with me when he took breaks from his training, but he never really got into all of the stuff I did. He wanted to drag me off to tournaments and battle frontiers, and on occasion they were fun, but I wasn’t prepared for them, sometimes I’d have bad experiences, and generally I’d just kinda long for doing my own thing.”
“I bet you felt pretty lonely at times though,” Viol says, remembering the pain of being away from his sister so much at times.
“Sometimes unbearably so,” Vanille says with a small sad smile. “While I didn’t enjoy my time with Viol all the time, I think even at worst it was better than the times when I realized I was alone. I wished things could go back to the way they were, with the two of us together having fun for the sake of fun, but eventually I realized I couldn’t just wait for Viol to come save me, I wanted to go out and meet people. I’ve been trying to work up the nerve to talk to people in the house, but most of the time I clam up, and if I don’t, you can bet Viol will be there to make a messy scene to scare them away.”
“I’m sure he was just trying to protect you,” Viol says. “You said he ran off people before, right?”
“Yeah, but this time was different,” Vanille says. “Rather than saving me, I felt like he was trapping me. Like he was the only one that had claim to me, as if I was some Pokemon to sit idly by in a box until he needed me.”
“Oh…” Viol says. He wanted to tell Vanille it wasn’t like that. He didn’t mean to trap Vanille, he wanted her to be happy but he was scared of losing her to someone who understood her better than his ham-fisted attempts at being personable. But there was no way he could talk about such personal feelings as Teej, even if Teej knew it. He couldn’t betray Viol’s trust… wait, Viol’s trust?
“And then the Ball was announced,” Vanille continues. “I was so happy, and I wrote up letters to invite a bunch of different people in the house. I was going to slip them under their doors and hope that someone would respond. But Viol found them and started tearing them up, saying no one would ever want to go to the Ball with me.”
“He couldn’t have really meant that,” Viol says. “Maybe he was scared he couldn’t get a date himself?”
“Hah, I doubt it,” Vanille says with a laugh. “That asshole wouldn’t stop his training for anything. I doubt he really cares about the Ball besides the fact that I’m going and he needs to keep tabs on me.”
“I feel like you’re being a bit harsh about this,” Viol says trying to steer the conversation.
“Please don’t say you’re taking his side,” Vanille says. “I mean, I get that you two have become friends for whatever reason, and I’m happy for you, but even you realize how much of a pain he is.”
“He’s not so bad,” Viol says defensively. “Maybe you just don’t know him as well as you think you do.”
“And you know him better than me?” Vanille says a bit upset. “I’ve known him my whole life. Can you really say you know more?”
The irony of the moment was not lost on Viol, but he could tell this conversation was going in a bad direction and he needed to save it.
“I just mean, sometimes it’s easy to wrongly assume what’s really happening, you know?” Viol says.
“And what makes you think that my assumption is wrong?” Vanille says. “What makes you think Viol isn’t just a petty little control freak that can’t just stand back and let someone else take the spotlight for a change?”
 
Teej had to think quickly. The gang had him surrounded, some of them brandishing weapons. It seemed to be uncommon in this world for such a confrontation to occur. Usually thugs threatened people with the aid of their Pokemon, and when beaten in a battle retreated, but these guys seemed to want to skip the battling and go straight into a direct brawl. Teej contemplated sending out a Pokemon to help, but he remembered Viol said that human and Pokemon combat was heavily discouraged. Sic’ing Pokemon on people or beating up on Pokemon was considered bad form, and Teej also didn’t want any of Viol’s Pokemon to get hurt in the fight as well.
It seemed the only course of action Teej could undertake was to fight them directly. He was no stranger to combat, but being in a new body like this was the problem. One slip up and Teej and Viol would both be dead.
Finally a couple of thugs ran at him, trying to ambush him from behind, but he was able to sweep his leg around to catch the first in the chest, knocking them into the second and causing them to collapse in a heap. A few more thugs ran at him and feeling outnumbered, he dodged his way through an opening created by the thugs that rushed him previously and made a break for another alleyway. He could hear the gang leader yelling directions, and it seemed like they were going to head him off. He had to think quickly, and looking up, he saw a fire escape on the side of the building. He just needed to pull down the ladder, but it was locked up. He suddenly thought to send out Klefki to help, since the Pokemon collected tons of keys from all over. The Pokemon got to work finding a suitable key to unlock the ladder as Teej kept an eye out for anyone who might approach. He thought to himself that he might have to get a custom set of lock picks for Viol’s Kelfki for this sort of situation, but wasn’t sure if he could trust Viol with that kind of responsibility given what he’d already done.
While Klefki worked, a couple of thugs appeared from a side alley and approached Teej. Shit, if only he had… that’s it! He quickly pulled out a Pokeball, sending out Aegislash, and without thinking grabbed the Pokemon by the hilt and held it in a two handed stance. The two thugs weren’t sure what to think. They were used to Pokemon battles and direct fighting, but not some strange combination of the two. How would a knife fare in a magical sword ghost fight anyways? The two groups were at a stand-off until Klefki successfully unlocked the fire escape lock, sending the ladder down with a clatter that made the thugs jump in surprise. Teej quickly climbed the ladder with Aegislash clinging to his back, but the thugs began to chase after him. He couldn’t lift the ladder with them holding onto it, so he needed a way to drop them. He quickly sent out Rotom and had it use its electricity to shock the ladder, making the thugs shout in pain and drop off so Teej could pull back the ladder. He quickly made his way to the roof and looked at the time. Shit, they had only 25 minutes now until the spell wore off and he wasn’t anywhere close to the restaurant now. He looked around for the thugs to see if any of them had given up yet, but heard the flapping of wings behind him as the boss of the gang landed on the roof near him.
“Look, let’s make this easy,” the man says with a shrug. “You’ve got a lot of money, and I need a lot of money. Just give it to me, and no one has to get hurt. Not even that sister of yours down there.”
 
Viol sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this, the last thing he needed was his sister to think he had feelings. However, the alternative was to let her think that he was some attention-grabbing asshole that was controlling her life.
“Look, you have to promise me that if I say anything, you’re not going to give Viol a hard time over it, okay?” Viol says. “It was hard enough to get him to open up to me without anyone rubbing salt in the wound further.”
“I guess,” Vanille says. “Though I doubt anything you say will be major.”
“Viol… cares about you a lot,” Viol says. “The reason he fought so hard against me was because he was convinced I’d take you away.”
“You’re not the type of person to hurt me though, Teej,” Vanille says. “He didn’t need to protect me from you.”
“He wasn’t… necessarily worried that you would get hurt,” Viol says picking his words carefully. “I mean, it was a concern, but not the main concern.”
“Then what was? The fact that I was getting attention and he wasn’t for a change?” Vanille asks sitting back in her chair.
“More like the idea that you would like hanging with other people… more than him,” Viol says, finding it hard to speak. “That you wouldn’t need him anymore once you had people like me.”
“Wait, what?” Vanille says surprised. “Where the hell did that come from?”
“You remember the day Viol was out all day and came back to your room and crashed?” Viol says as Vanille nods. “He accidentally locked himself in my room and we had a bit of a talk about how he was losing you to me.”
“Why would he worry about things like that?” Vanille asks.
“Because, you’ve even said it tonight,” Viol says, baring his emotions outright. “There are times you wish you didn’t have a brother. To him, you settled for him because he was the only one in your life. If you had more friends, you wouldn’t care to spend time with him anymore because you’d have someone better.”
“Teej…” Vanille says quietly. “Sometimes I wish I don’t have a brother, but feel horrible at the thought of losing him. One time he didn’t show up for 3 weeks on one of his training journeys and I was worried sick over him. And the dumbass has the gall to come back with a broken arm and ask me to take care of him!”
Viol laughs at remembering her face when that happened.
“But I remember thinking that I was glad to see him back, and I wouldn’t know what to do without him,” Vanille says. “I want my space now, but I don’t want to lose him either. If anything, I want him to get out and find people he can tolerate too. That’s why it’s nice that he is finding other people like you. I’d just like him to realize though that monopolizing time with me and the people I want to hang out with doesn’t give me the chance to meet people myself.”
“I understand,” Viol says. “But maybe he’s being a bit extra attentive to you recently because of him opening up to me. You notice that it’s usually the three of us together recently right?”
“So you’re saying he’s been this clingy because he feels responsible for our drifting apart and wants to make amends?”
“Maybe not in so many words,” Viol says. “But I think he wants to make the most of the time he has for you now, while you still have a good amount of time for him.”
“I see,” Vanille says quietly. “He’s not hanging around to ruin my plans or upstage me, he just wants to be with me.”
“And there’s nothing wrong with people noticing him more than you,” Viol says. “You’re a bit more shy right now, people aren’t necessarily going to notice you if you don’t come out of your shell. You just haven’t bloomed yet.”
“D-do you really think so?” Vanille says with a blush as she leans over the table towards Viol.
“Yeah, because you’re kind, and funny, and smart,” Viol begins before noticing what she’s doing. Ahhh, she’s getting way too close!
 
Teej was seeing red alright, just as the gang boss said, but his blood was boiling rather than being spilled on the pavement. Not only did he feel Viol’s brotherly affection towards Vanille and his need to protect her, but also his own chivalrous nature of defending fair maidens was turning his feelings into blinding rage towards the man. Without thinking, he sent out his Garchomp, to which the man sent out a Machamp.
“Come on, you really want to try mixing it up with me?” the boss said. “You don’t scare me one bit.”
Garchomp and Machamp exchanged a few blows, carefully dodging and ducking away from devastating hits. Time was ticking away that Teej could not waste here, but this man couldn’t be allowed to go without a little scare being put into him. Teej could see the restaurant in the distance, and remembered that there was no way he could get into the restaurant to warn Viol about the spell wearing off. He’d have to get Viol to leave, and he just might have figured out a way to do it. He climbed onto the back of Garchomp.
“Hey, don’t think you can get away that easily!” the boss yelled after Teej. “Machamp, use Submission.”
Machamp began to run towards Garchomp and Teej but Teej just glared straight at the man behind the Machamp and finally gave his order.
“Garchomp, Outrage the fuck out of them!” Teej yells as Garchomp lunges forward.
 
Viol was looking for a way out of the situation as Vanille leaned forward obviously proposing a kiss. Viol of course didn’t want to kiss his sister, but he was supposed to pretend to be Teej, and his gut was telling him that bastard would kiss her just to spare her feelings. If only there were a way out of this.
The next moment, panic broke loose in Le Moyenne when a Machamp and Garchomp hurtled through the wall, They found a man underneath the Machamp with several injuries and called the police and paramedics. From the back of the Garchomp, Teej dropped down. His arms had a few cuts and his pants were a bit torn, but otherwise he was fine.
Vanille and Viol both looked over at the scene, and Viol was relieved that Teej came at the right time for a distraction. Vanille however stormed over and began to yell at “her brother”.
“What the fuck are you doing crashing into a restaurant like this?” she screams. “Are you really that fucking jealous that you had to do something as stupid as this?”
Teej just looked at Vanille, the rage was gone and now he just burst into tears, grabbing ahold of her and hugging her.
“I’m glad you’re alright,” he says through the tears.
“H-hey, stop!” Vanille says confused. “What the hell are you blubbering for? Why wouldn’t I be okay?”
“This gang outside said they were going to k-kill you,” Teej says. “I k-kinda went into a blind rage and I wasn’t sure if they got to you or not.”
“You idiot, you fought them off by yourself?” Vanille says looking him over. “And look, you’re all cut up. Why the hell would you do that?”
Viol walked up hoping to remedy the situation.
“He did it to protect you,” Viol says. “Let’s go get him cleaned up.”
“R-right,” Vanille says with a smile.
“I’ll take him home,” Viol says to Vanille handing her the Pokeballs Teej had. “You get these Pokemon checked out at the center to make sure they’re okay.”
“Are you sure you’ll be fine getting him home by yourself?” Vanille asks.
“He gave me a Pokemon with teleport earlier,” Viol says. “We’ll be back at the house in a few seconds. See you there?”
“Yeah, be safe, both of you,” Vanille says as Viol sends out a Kirlia and teleports away with Teej in tow.
 
The two boys arrived back at the house and they went back up to Teej’s room to talk.
“We have to make sure the spell wears off,” Teej says as they enter. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been getting some of your memories and feelings bleeding into me as the spell dragged on.”
“That’s probably why I’ve been feeling like a tool all night then,” Viol says. “And what the hell is up with elves anyways?”
“Look, we don’t have time to be mad about that right now,” Teej says trying to get Viol to focus. “The spell should be wearing off in 10 seconds, if not, we’re in a lot of shit.”
The time ticked down to the last second, they braced themselves for the switch back…
But nothing happened.
“Holy shit we are fucked!” Teej says. “The spell probably got so fucked up it can’t pull us back to our bodies. And with these bleeds, we’re going to slowly become an amalgam of both of our personalities until our minds become unstable and we go insane.”
Viol meanwhile was calm as he looks through the handbook at where the spell was and looks over the character sheet to confirm his suspicions.
“I don’t think Mind Switch was the spell that was cast in this situation,” Viol says. “At least not regular Mind Switch.”
“What do you mean?” Teej says, confused.
“Well, your stats changed, but you lost a lot of EXP,” Viol says. “What if True Mind Switch was cast instead? That means it wouldn’t wear off, but rather be a permanent switch.”
“How exactly does knowing the exact spell make a difference?” Teej asks with his mind racing.
“Because if it’s a temporary switch, we’d have to wait for the spell to wear off to do anything,” Viol says, trying to say the logic out loud.  “And if it fucked up and the time limit was changed, we’d still have to wait for it to finish, right?”
“Probably, yeah,” Teej says. “Or else if we switched again, it could finish and switch us a third time, fucking up everything.”
“But since it’s a permanent swap, we don’t have to worry about it wearing off, it’s already finished,” Viol says. “All we need to do is find a way to switch again. Another permanent switch, though I don’t think we can cast this one again. Do you have any ideas, Teej?”
Teej’s mind raced, normally he’d know the rules of this sort of thing inside and out, but a bunch of new information about Pokemon were crowding his thoughts and making it hard to focus. Why couldn’t there just be a Pokemon he could use to fix this?
“Wait, that’s it!” Teej says with a start. He runs out of the room towards the Pallets’ room and logged into Viol’s PC to access his Pokemon. Viol came into the room confused.
“The hell are you doing?” he asks.
“Okay, so True Mind Switch switches the mind and soul of two people,” Teej says. “It transfers any mind-related stats and powers with the mind it belongs to and leaving the body-related stats untouched. It’s effectively giving a stat boost or nerf to the mind stats based on the differences between the two being switched.”
“Yeah, I think I can follow that,” Viol says scratching his head. “So what?”
“So Manaphy,” Teej says. “Manaphy knows Heart Swap which switches the buffs and debuffs on the normal stats of one Pokemon with another Pokemon. If the switch is considered altering the stats, then using Heart Swap returns the stats to how they were normally. And since the stats are tied to our minds and souls…”
“Heart Swap would force the switch to be undone!” Viol says realizing the implications. “But would that really work? It’s cheating the system right?”
“A bit, but that’s what the rules are there for in the books,” Teej says as he pulls out Manaphy’s Pokeball. “S-sometimes at least. The main problem is going to be making it permanent. The switch would only be temporary as long as we’re in close proximity.”
“Then we’ll just have one of us teleport away,” Viol says. “If we’re too far away, the move won’t be able to switch us back.”
“It’s worth a try, I guess,” Teej says sending out Manaphy. “Manaphy, use Heart Swap on the two of us, quick!”
Manaphy emanated a pink glow between the two men and they felt their perspectives flip back to their original bodies. Before it wore off, Viol in his original body grabbed Kirlia’s Pokeball from Teej and had the Pokemon teleport him back to Lumiose City’s Pokemon Center. He stood there for a moment, watching the pink glow around him disappear, and was glad to notice that he was still here, and that Teej’s intrusive feelings were no longer there.
He spotted Vanille through the window, and at first thought about just heading back without saying anything, but he felt like he needed to apologize to her and make things right. He entered the center and their eyes met. This was going to be a long night.
 
Teej was relieved that all of this was over with as he headed back to his room. He fell onto his bed and crashed hard, sleeping until well into the morning the next day before he heard a rustling at his door. He went to go investigate and found a large envelope addressed to him. He opened it up to find a Pokedex inside. On the back, there was a note taped on.
 
        Thank you for last night, thought this would be a nice gift. It’s like a handbook, but for Pokemon.
                        -Vanille
 
He smiled a bit, knowing he had to ask Viol what happened at some point, but as he went to put the note down, he noticed there was writing on the back aswell.
 
        I’d like to DM a game for you and Vanille sometime, or maybe we could go out catching Pokemon, just the three of us, whatever. I’m bad about being direct with this kind of stuff, but what I’m trying to say is:
 “A world of dreams and adventures with Pokemon awaits! Let's go!”
                        -Viol
P.S. No one talks about last night or this note. Ever.
 
Teej smiles to himself and boots up the Pokedex.
“I guess I’ve been welcomed to the world of Pokemon.”