"Tony caught Mycroft, actually, but he has always liked me best. I started a little late."

"How come?" Bella asks Sherlock. "I'm having a hard time picturing Tony being keener on training 'mon than you."

"I spent the majority of my childhood in the house library, which is why I have already read all of its good books and most of the bad ones."

"Huh. And then you scooped up Mycroft and went out - fairly standard after that? Did you catch your others yourself?"

"I caught Irene and Watson. You came from the flock, of course."

"Of course," laughs Bella. "I caught Fireflower and Rachis myself, but those are the only ones, the others are trades. Through the Guild."

He nods.

"Some of the other aces think it's weird to spend a long time on personality matching - if you're good enough, any 'mon you own will do what you say, so, they figure what's the point - but I was really careful about getting ones that liked to fight but didn't live for it," Bella says. "Traded away some excessively peaceable critters and one bloodthirsty little beast of a Marill till I had a balance I liked."

"The peaceful ones went to like-minded trainers, I hope?"

"Well, I was working through the guild and it's a battling-oriented guild, I just couldn't think of any other way to find traders back then, but I did my best. There's a few people who are sort of alumni, like, they're no longer really planning to challenge the League but they keep paying dues and showing up to meetings. I had a lazy, easily bored Starly that didn't want to do anything, and that one went to a collector, I felt relatively okay about giving that one to a collector to get Branch."

Sherlock nods.

"Foreign collector," Bella adds, "or I couldn't possibly have interested her in a Starly. Of course, I think approximately the same thing was going through that one guy's head when I traded him the Marill back for Dusk - Dusk was still an Eevee then - I think Eevee must be really common where he's from or something and he thought he was getting a deal."

"Has Dusk received a change of name?"

"Previous owner didn't name him. I called him Poofball, for a while, he was so fluffy, but he evolved pretty quick and I knew what I was aiming for all along, I wasn't ever trying to get ahold of a stone or anything and I did have to tell him off for trying to evolve in the daytime once."

He laughs. "Eevee are extremely fluffy."

"Dusk was an above-average-fluffiness Eevee. In his winter coat if he curled up a little he was round, plus ears. Actually, you know what, I have pictures -" She flips through Pokétch apps, and finds her photo album, and navigates, and then displays her wrist with a truly poofy Eevee curled up in a large-eyed fluffball shape on a pillow. "I think he prefers being all sleek, though."

"Oh my goodness," says Sherlock.

"I want to hug him," says Tony. "That is the fluffiest thing I have ever seen."

"You were indeed cute," says Sherlock, "and are indeed beautiful."

"Can I hug you anyway?" says Tony to Dusk.

Dusk prances across the table to accept a hug.

Tony hugs him.

Dusk is quite cuddly in spite of having traded in his floof.

"You are super cuddly," says Tony, cuddling him.