but it's alright, cos being your punchline still is something

Chapter 2

Vicia is on cloud nine when she leaves Faba's office. He'd told her right then and there that she would start as his assistant the next day, and that he would do all the necessary paperwork to make it happen. She couldn't resist crying, "Aww, yeah!" or giving him an excited hug before he dismissed her.

Things could not be going better for her. Not only did a very important man in the Aether Foundation take notice of her early on, not only did he offer her a job as his personal assistant, but he also likes her. Enough to have her sneak into his office to give him a very unprofessional blowjob, even! These are the sorts of things she's only ever heard about, that she never thought actually happened in real life, or if they did, she never thought they would happen to her.

Vicia considers herself very lucky to have been brought on here at all. Interviews are difficult for her, something that she has learned since finishing school. Her personality is a little much , as she has often been told, and she knows that her appearance doesn't help much either. As a kid and into her school years, she never really had friends, so rowdy that she scared other kids off, but she's known for a long time that she wanted to work somewhere like this, and buried herself in schoolwork to make sure that she would qualify.

When the other kids in her hometown back in Johto went off on journeys, she began planning for this future, and it really feels as though she is finally starting to become the person she has always wanted to. Of course, her plans never specifically involved the whole sleeping around to get ahead thing, but she's a simple girl, and she can't deny that there is a certain excitement to it.

Plus, she likes Faba. She doesn't know if it's just that she's impressed by his credentials, or ready to latch onto the first person who pays any attention to her, but she likes him. And she may be stupid about a lot of things, but she's not so stupid that she doesn't realize that he's using her, and that him "liking" her doesn't mean she's found a boyfriend, or even a friend. It's just the closest thing she's had in a very long time, so she appreciates it, no matter what it may be.

No matter how he feels about her, she already likes him. She looks forward to working with him, and hopefully proving how "useful" she can be again.

~X~

The next day, Vicia comes to work with him. Faba submitted the necessary paperwork and got the transfer done as quickly as possible, not wanting to take so long that she decided to put more pressure on him. The last thing he needs right now is a scandal that causes him to mess up everything he has worked so hard to build. How could he have been so stupid to risk this? His confidence is going to be his undoing, if he isn't careful, and now he has to be extra careful, because of Vicia.

He doesn't want to risk giving her more material unless she decides to demand that of him, so on the first day, he gives her menial labor to do. With everything else that he does to try and make himself seem as important as possible, organization has gotten away from him, and he sets Vicia to getting things back in order, while he does his own work, observing her from time to time.

He has to admit, were it not for her personality, she would have been a welcome addition to his office. She's no less beautiful than before, especially when she keeps her mouth shut or has her back to him, bending over to pick up something that she dropped...but he shakes his head, trying to keep his thoughts from growing too lecherous. That's what got him into this mess to begin with, and his only hope of letting this blow over is keeping a low profile while he lets her use her position as his assistant to get wherever she needs to get in the company.

Unfortunately for him, she does not keep her mouth shut for very long, not seeming to notice that he's trying to work. She asks him about where he went to school and when he started here, and his short answers don't discourage her from continuing. Instead, she tells him all about where she's from and where she went to school, and when she decided that she wanted to work with Pokemon.

"All my friends were going off on journeys, you know. Well, they weren't really my friends, just kids from my town. I guess I kinda talked to some of them sometimes, like Lyra and stuff, but mostly not. Anyway, I was feeling pretty lonely, but then the professor gave me a Pokemon too! Even though I wasn't planning on going on a journey, so I wouldn't be lonely without the other kids!" She beams when she gets to this part of the story, forgetting her work for a moment. "So that's why I decided to stay in school instead of becoming a trainer full time. I wanted to do something like he did, cos it helped me out so much."

"How very kind of him," Faba says a bit dismissively. Vicia doesn't seem to notice his lack of interest, or at the very least doesn't care, and gets back to work as she talks about her first Pokemon, and then the others after that, until she's described her current team to him. Trainer or not, she certainly seems prepared for battles at any time.

She goes on and on like that throughout the day, and Faba hardly gets anything done, while Vicia manages to complete a surprising amount of cleaning even while talking. One thing that stands out to him is that, despite her obvious brilliance that she shows in her schoolwork, she actually seems to be rather stupid, and he wonders how someone like her could actually be clever enough to blackmail someone like him. For a moment, he considers the possibility that he may have jumped to the wrong conclusion, but he banishes that thought immediately.

He may have made a mistake in inviting her for the "interview," but he is very rarely wrong, and he doubts that he would be wrong twice in one day. How she manages to be so smart and yet so stupid at the same time is a mystery, but it never hurts to be too careful, and he has to at least try to keep her happy, or else risk his entire career as a result of making her upset with him. If all she wants is a position as his assistant and some attention from time to time, then he supposes that he can give that to her, no matter how annoying she may be.

Though she drones on and on throughout the day, he eventually manages to adjust to it, finally able to buckle down and get work done, while tuning out her stories about school- he picks up something about her eating a styrofoam cup on a dare, or something, and immediately tunes back out- and before he knows it, the day is at an end, and she has done a spectacular job finishing up the cleaning and organizing that he has asked her to do. That being said, they are not particularly difficult tasks, but the fact that someone with a transcript like hers does not think herself above common work like that and is willing to give it her all either way certainly says good things about her work ethic.

Were it not for that personality, that voice, and those teeth , Faba might be in an entirely different sort of danger by promoting her to his assistant. A hardworking, smart, earnest, and beautiful young woman who seems to recognize just how amazing he is would put him at quite the risk of falling in love, not that he has ever considered anything like that for himself before. He has always focused more on his career and getting ahead, certain that tying himself down with any sort of relationship would only hold him back from reaching his full potential.

Even so, Vicia could have been a very risky endeavor in that regard, and he is almost glad that she is as off putting as she is. At the very least, he knows that there is no chance of him ever falling in love with her, even if he is stuck with her from here on out, until she finds her next ladder to climb.