Essentia ||A Pokémon Story||

Chapter 3: Girls' Night Out

"Hey-o!" Renée waved. She had been waiting for Emma just outside Looker's Bureau just under a small tree. She was still dressed how she had been earlier at the café.

"Why change if the outfit already works?" Renée asked, guessing what Emma was thinking.

"Then what about my other clothes?" Emma was confused. "Those worked."

"Well, yes, but..." Renée put a hand on Emma's shoulder, giving her a look. "Every time we've hung out, you're always wearing the same thing. You would benefit from changing up your outfit more often, which by the way, does you wonders!" She smiled appreciatively, nodding. "You ready to have fun tonight?"

"I guess," Emma shrugged, giving her friend a nervous smile. 

Renée sighed. "You need to get more friends. You obviously don't have enough." She suddenly squealed when Mimi floated onto Emma's shoulder. "Oh my Arceus! She's so cute!" She immediately began tickling beneath her chin and rubbing her head. "That bow looks so cute on her!"

"Purr!" Mimi purred contently.

"Got your purse?" Renée asked, glancing down at Emma's waist. "Yep, then let's go!"

She began leading Emma and Mimi down the street in the direction of Prism Tower. The sun was close to setting, the evening air cool compared to the heat during the day. The street lamps had already turned on while Prism Tower remained dark. From what Emma could tell, it didn't turn on until it got a little darker.

"So what are we going to do exactly?" Emma asked. "I don't usually go out at night to places, so I-"

"I thought you did?" Renée raised an eyebrow.

"I, uh, meant that I work out," Emma said, nearly slipping on her words. She didn't want to reveal what she really did at night. "I don't shop or anything..."

"Well, don't worry about that," Renée said. "There's plenty to do at night in Lumiose. We're going to Centrico Plaza first. Seeing Prism Tower light up in person is a beautiful sight to behold. Oh, and there's a Karaoke place nearby as well! We have to do that!"

"Kar... Karaoke?" Emma asked, testing the word out. "What's that?"

Renée stopped walking, staring at her aghast. "You don't know what Karaoke is!?" She groaned. "I have to know. Is Mimi hitting you with Confusion every morning or what?"

Emma chuckled nervously, scratching her cheek. She found herself not knowing what things were more and more these days. This had been the first thing she had asked Looker and Dr. Chevrolet for her first check-up. Looker had been unable to provide an answer, but Dr. Chevrolet had given her best guess. She surmised that since Emma had been programmed so to speak to be the perfect sacrifice and not know her origins about being an artificial human, she never needed to question certain things. 

"It's like a switch being turned off in your brain," Dr. Chevrolet had said, blowing out smoke as she lifted her cigarette. "You never had a need to wonder about things that weren't within your set parameters. You lived, you had two part-time jobs, one at Team Flare and one with Looker. You like coffee, you have an Espurr named Mimi, you're kind to others, stuff like that was all you needed to know. But." She held up a finger. "Now that the switch is off, all the other stuff in life suddenly comes into question. Before I imagine you could merely shrug off comments and questions about things you didn't know. But now many things in life will be a mystery to you."

She had went for another smoke, lifted, then said, "I suppose being a junior detective and all, you'll find this to be an interesting period in your life."

Not that I really understand any of that, Emma reflected. 

"Well!" Renée clapped her hands together. "We'll go see Prism Tower light up and go immediately to Karaoke straight after!" She grabbed Emma's hand and began pulling her along into Rogue Plaza. "We need to hurry if we want to get front row seats!"