Lili & Fufu Explore the World

Treason looked over the two eevees in front of him and nodded. "You kids don't look like the type to be scared of bugs," he said.

"Not a kid," Lili remarked, spreading eir feathery wings indignantly. "I'm over level thirty."

Fufu tilted eir head, eir own wings folded neatly behind eir back. "Is it the level that makes you not a kid?"

"It's not the evolution, 'cause I'm an adult even if Kyrie won't schedule my evolution until–"

"Schedule your evolution?" Treason raised both eyebrows. "You telling me you have to wait until your evolution is scheduled, instead of just deciding you're gonna evolve?"

"It's a ceremony, Lili said.

"For real?" Treason rolled his eyes. "Anyway, you kids don't have a problem with bugs, so get out there."

"Okay!" Fufu barked, and ey ran off into the rainforest. Lili leveled a glare at Treason, then followed eir friend.

"We're not kids!" Lili snapped once ey caught up with the demonic eevee. "I'm full-grown, and so are you, even though you're level…"

"Twenty," said Fufu.

"Really? I thought you were twenty-eight."

"How?" Fufu laughed. "I haven't really been around much, y'know? We're supposed to be best friends, but we haven't even appeared in the same story yet!"

"Cool it with the fourth wall breaking."

"What? This isn't part of the official arcs."

Lili snorted. "Whatever."

Ey jumped on top of a fallen tree, rattling the bark; the inside was mostly hollow. It was also filled with bugs, which all made their escape in a massive swarm coating the forest floor.

Fufu shrieked and jumped back, their fur on end. "Lili! I don't like bugs!"

A spinarak stopped their scurrying to roll their eyes at em. "Rude," they said.

"You're fine," Lili said kindly. "Ey's fine with bug types, Fufu just doesn't like the animal bugs."

The spinarak nodded. "If it helps, there were mostly spiders in there. Those aren't technically bugs."

Lili watched Fufu run around screaming eir head off. "No," ey said, "that doesn't help at all."

---

The spinarak, introducing themself as Quirk, used their string shot to wrap up Fufu and bring em to a quieter spot a few meters up a tree. Lili flew after them and sat Fufu up where the branch met the trunk. "Deep breaths," the angel eevee said, patting Fufu's forehead. "You're fine."

"The spiders are gonna eat me!" Fufu wailed.

"That's piranhas," Quirk said. "You're thinking of piranhas."

"What's a piranha?!"

Lili sighed. "Guess this was a bust," ey said. "We'll have to tell Treason we didn't find anything. I'm not mad. He shouldn't have sent us out here in the first place."

Quirk solemnly shook their head. "If a man named Treason told me to do anything, I would simply not do it."

"If only I were you."

Lili focused eir attention back on Fufu, rubbing the spot between eir horns and whispering soothing words. Quirk helped, though they were really bad at it, and arguably, fusing Fufu's mouth shut with another string shot may have made things worse. Eventually, Fufu was calm enough that the two freed em from the wrappings.

"Awful," Fufu said. "Absolutely awful. Let's just grab any old trash and tell Treason it's magical."

"Powerful," Lili corrected.

"Hang on," said Quirk. "I've got something. My home is a little higher up."

They scuttled higher up the tree. Fufu and Lili took flight and followed them to a small hollow, where Quirk pulled out a translucent gold fossil. "Here," they said. "This is just some honey or something? I mean, it was a long time ago. Now it's just a rock."

"Are you sure?" Fufu said. "I was just gonna give him, I dunno, a piece of bark or something."

"It's gotta look convincing, right? I don't need this thing. Take it."

Lili nodded and picked up the fossilized honey in eir mouth. "This tastes gross," ey informed Fufu. "C'mon, let's–"

Ey cut emself short with a gasp, eir eyes widening. Fufu fluffed out eir mane. "What's going on? Is it evil?"

"This is an evolution item," Lili said, eir voice muffled.

"Really?"

"I'm mashing the B button as we speak."

"Huh," said Quirk. "Well, let me know what becomes of it."

Fufu was a little disappointed to be giving Treason something actually powerful, but ey nodded. "Thanks for your help, Quirk," ey said. "Dunno if I'll ever be around here again, but maybe you'll be in a canon story soon?"

"What?" said Quirk.

"I mean, you got a name and everything. That's not usually a one-off character."

"Seriously, what?"

"Never mind," said Fufu. "C'mon, Lili, let's–"

Lili flew off the tree branch before Fufu could finish eir sentence. Fufu rolled eir eyes, raised a wing in farewell to Quirk, and followed eir friend back to Treason. Hopefully this would be the first and last time they had to do this.