play magical hat trick

Six suits, their boss and his daughter walk into a(n okonomiyaki) bar. That last one lights up like Naniwa Land after spotting Mum's necklace: her school doesn't play, does yours? No? Well...

Mega-rich social butterfly meets steeple-dreaming restaurant cook. Start of a joke, right.

She spat in her palm. Lilly shook it.

Then Esther from three stores down invited herself along. Bush and Bluebells' snooping saw them scouted. Parkside practice caught Moor's eye. Miss Sumo Champ stopped eight shots in her first match ever and nobody, nobody laughed.

So Shawn's gushing over a new underling, some cocky hotshot striker who moves like a midwinter storm. Must feel the silent judgment then because the line goes damn quiet.

That's when he learns where Dimensional Hand came from.

Of course Mark would get his pants in a twist over sharing moves with his grandad, he's maybe meant to reply, but no. He doesn't get it. It's-

Thing is-

Ugh. He doesn't know why he should. It's just a move. Should Junior High Him have told Mr. Sweet no, he'd find power alone? What about 'we're all fighting the same fight'?

He meets Fourseasons but once.

"Mr Love!" the reporter calls, breathless patter eclipsed by her shadow: a regular star in the magazines, graceful and decorous and fair. The boy inclines his head, smiles up at Strom's scowl. The reporter says, "-hoped you might consent to a joint interview, perhaps share your-"

"Did you, now?"

Like calls to like, you see. Once, long ago, his own Kirkwood Junior High flourished under such leadership; now comes the turn of Olympus. Beneath skill and manners and poise, hellfire seethes.

Every Shinohara raised a Betbeton. The reasons why, from least to most repetitive, included:

Learning to safely handle its toxins taught valuable fundamentals for the family business. (That was more about collateral risk than personal. Every Shinohara was a Poison-type too.) 

Once you could hide a thirty-kilogram walking purple sludge heap in the middle of downtown Nagasaki, hiding yourself was nothing.

They could sneak in anywhere, given time and the tiniest crevice. And unlike in Grandpa's time, Poké Ball technology negated the tell-tale stench that was their biggest identifier.

Every Shinohara raised a Betbeton. Tradition demanded it.

Other families preferred other inheritances. Dokukurage, Matadogas, Morphon, Tekkanin. All useful pedigrees, all high-maintenance breeds, all acquired tastes. All prone to scaring outsiders away.

Good thing Raika's had a loophole. "Her name's Oshigen," she replied, not blinking at the veiled dagger in Grandpa's interrogation. "You wanted me to have one, right?"

The Honolulu training camp had been part of this year's winnings. Curiosity piqued by a familiar stench on a passing safety vest, reflective strips flecked with not-familiar colours, she trailed its wearer into a waste disposal facility. The brilliant riot of colour inside shocked her enough to break cover, echoing gasp drawing stinky eyes.

The workers didn't speak Japanese. That is Grimer, a translator app said. (In half an hour the floor boss would scare them all back to work. He'd squint at her sticky, unharmed hands, grunt about nosy tourists, then show her where the wild ones were.) That is Muk. They are our valued companions.