As the old saying goes, a man's hairline reflects the strength of his resolve. Daniel — now only half a step from ascending to true master status — showed up at Luke's place the next day, laptop in hand.
"Check this interface layout, does it work..."
"That fast?" Luke blinked, genuinely surprised.
"Obviously. Didn't sleep a wink last night." Daniel pointed proudly at the deep blue-black circles under his eyes.
While the two of them hashed out design details, Eevee sat nearby, curiously studying the pink creature that had wandered in with Daniel — round body, coiled ears, glassy stare, a long pink tail trailing behind. It opened its mouth wide, an almost visible question mark hovering over its head.
"Slow?" the creature offered, expression completely blank.
"Vee?" Eevee tilted its head, waving a paw experimentally in front of its face.
"Sloooow..." Slowpoke, entirely unbothered, let out a long yawn, eyes narrowing shut as it drifted off to sleep on the spot.
*"Vee... Vee (ω-q)" In the cool air of the apartment, Eevee rubbed its own sleepy eyes and hopped nimbly onto Luke's lap instead.
"Hm?" Luke, mid-code, glanced down, startled, then smiled and stroked Eevee's fur. "Nap if you want, I'll wake you for food."
"Vee..." Eevee nodded obediently, tail giving a slow, contented wag as it drifted off too.
Daniel laughed. "Your Eevee's genuinely well-behaved."
Luke stroked its tail, glancing at the claw marks still gouged into the couch nearby. "...He's very cute," Luke said, neck stiffening slightly as he nodded.
The art assets had been outsourced to a Smeargle out of Metro City Academy of Fine Arts — the school's Smeargle, after professional training, handled drawing tablets with real fluency, making chibi-style Pokémon art no problem at all. Rumor had it the art students had developed a genuine sense of professional dread over it. Study hard, or risk losing out to Pokémon. A few students, rather than fight that trend, had apparently just started raising their own Smeargle as personal assistants instead.
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Toward sunset, Eevee's soft breathing broke off, and its eyes opened, glancing around. The evening light poured through the window, landing squarely on Luke's focused profile, almost haloing him.
"Vee!" Eevee nudged its bell insistently, signaling hunger.
Luke just gave its head a scratch. "Hang on a bit longer, almost done."
Eevee hopped down, wandering into the living room — where Slowpoke lay sprawled under the AC unit, drooling contentedly, still asleep. Eevee circled it three times, sniffing, drawing steadily closer to that long pink tail.
Its eyes lit up. Mouth open — chomp.
The room went silent. Three seconds later, Slowpoke's eyes blinked open, blank as ever. "Slow?"
It found Eevee staring back with total innocence, still mid-chew on its tail.
Huh. Thought I'd caught a fish.
It yawned, ready to go right back to sleep — until a sharp jolt of pain hit, and its eyes snapped fully open.
"SLOW!!"
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Luke had originally planned to invite Daniel to stay for dinner. Daniel, tactfully, declined — pointed out that dinner might end up being braised Slowpoke tail at this rate.
Thankfully, Slowpoke's Regenerator ability made quick work of the bite marks, and the famously forgetful creature waved cheerfully at Eevee on its way out, apparently having had a perfectly pleasant afternoon regardless.
"Kojie (﹃)" Haunter wiped drool off its chin, watching Slowpoke's retreating form with unmistakable longing.
Luke's expression twisted. "Next time we have guests... you two, please. Behave."
"Otherwise people are going to think their food delivery just showed up at the front door."
"Vee!" Eevee answered first, tail wagging, letting out an innocent little yawn.
"Wait, that was supposed to be a lesson, not an excuse to look cute—" Luke rubbed his own eyes mid-sentence. "Huh. Why am I suddenly this tired?"
He didn't get to finish the thought before toppling straight backward.
Haunter caught his shoulders just in time.
"Kojie?" It shot Eevee a confused look.
Eevee stuck out its tongue, gave the dark circles under Luke's eyes one gentle lick, then turned pointedly away with an expression that screamed nothing to do with me.
Truthfully, Luke had been running himself ragged coding for two straight days, burning through the nights without rest. Eevee figured, reasonably, that all this was ultimately for the household's benefit — but rest still mattered too. This Yawn should buy their exhausted Trainer a solid, uninterrupted stretch of sleep.
"Kojie! (ノ￣▽￣)" Haunter, meanwhile, signaled it had just picked up an idea of its own. Noted — Hypnosis works too, next time.
Haunter hauled Luke onto the bed, tucked the blanket over him, and exchanged a satisfied glance with Eevee. Mission accomplished.
"Kojie?" — training now?
"Vee..." — so hungry...
Haunter, equally pale with hunger, drooped weakly above Luke's sleeping head. Nothing left to do but wait for him to wake up.
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Luke surfaced from sleep feeling genuinely refreshed — just faintly cold. He opened his eyes to find Haunter's face looming directly overhead, radiating pure reproach.
"Kojie! (;Д`)"
Luke laughed, resigned. "Alright, alright, I know — dinner's happening right now."
Getting up, he shot Haunter a suspicious look, scratching his head. Something about the sudden blackout felt suspiciously like getting hit with a tranquilizer dart out of nowhere. Not Haunter's doing, though — its Hypnosis always came with a telltale flicker of blue light.
Which left Eevee, currently curled up in its cat bed, feigning sleep — visibly tensing the instant Luke's gaze landed on it, eyes still stubbornly shut.
Luke pushed up a pair of imaginary glasses. There's only one logical explanation here.
It picked up Yawn from Slowpoke. This afternoon. In real time.
[Yawn: Induces drowsiness in the target, causing it to fall asleep on the following turn.]
Staring at the new entry in the system's move list, Luke let out a long sigh. Learning a move in one afternoon is one thing — actually testing it out THIS fast is another level entirely.
What if I hadn't woken back up? Am I supposed to start worrying about my own Pokémon on top of wild ones now?
Being a Trainer really is a full-contact sport, huh.
"Wait — isn't Yawn supposed to be an inherited move? How'd it show up directly like this?"
Luke rubbed his chin, scanning the movelist more carefully — and his expression shifted into something genuinely startled.
Sitting right there in Eevee's list: Mimic.
That explained everything. Mimic was exactly how Eevee had absorbed Slowpoke's Yawn that fast — and combined with the fact that it had apparently already fully internalized the move afterward, mimicking naturally outpaced the traditional learning curve entirely.
"Picking up another Pokémon's move that quickly..." Luke sighed.
"One 'Uchiha Gengar' I could handle."
"...Now I've apparently also got a Kakashi Eevee running around, freeloading other people's jutsu?"