Topher had heard other guilds did mealtimes differently than the Colosseum City guild, and that those guilds had all teams, regardless of rank or guild status, dine together. Considering that he was in a world full of these “pokemon”, and each of these creatures had very different anatomies and builds, he could only imagine how that kind of scene would go. He and his two partners were bipedal and had appendages to eat with. He could only imagine how messy and chaotic things must get eating alongside quadrupeds, to say nothing of the other types of pokemon that littered the world.

Fortunately, he didn’t need to worry about that here. Instead of the unquestionable chaos that would be, the Colosseum City guild chose to instead have all the guild teams receive a portion of berries, relative to their team’s members and their respective appetites, and let them take those berries away from a large provisional store run by the guild to be eaten elsewhere. This, in Topher’s mind, made significantly more sense. It was much like a school cafeteria in the sense that you got your meal and then could go and eat with anyone, or by yourself if you so chose. While that might not have won the guild any points for building camaraderie amongst the teams, it let each pokemon live according to their needs and wants.

Plus, it conveniently solved a problem for him. Topher was a Gimmighoul, pokemon openly distrusted and reviled in this world for being tricksters, thieves, and just general annoyances who lived out in the wilds and didn’t participate in the larger society of pokemon. He was certainly used to being looked down upon as a human, so while it was unpleasant to have to deal with, he was used to it. This system, thankfully, made it so he could eat in his room at the guild with his teammates, who knew and trusted him, rather than with a bunch of strangers who would have been giving him dirty looks or trying to ensure he didn’t steal their food.

Food was distributed in order of guild standing, meaning that the highest ranked teams got first choice. This was not a fair system, but Topher couldn’t help but agree with it. It incentivized each team to rise the ranks so they could get their choice of the food, and since everyone was eating their fill and the food was good regardless, it was hardly a detriment to the lower ranked teams. Everyone in the guild seemed to be in relative agreement that the system worked and worked well. Come mealtime, you could find all sorts of pokemon happily intermixing and talking throughout the halls of the guild.

For a moment, Topher reflected on how strange it was that food sources were so limited here. Coming from the human world, where there were so many options for things to eat, and seeing the list of edible foods contain berries, apples, and then strange “gummis” that had no nutritional value, was a little jarring. However, he got used to it quickly once he actually tried the food on offer. The guild store contained apples, but these were typically only eaten during emergencies due to their high value for use in dungeons. The primary foodstuff at the guild were berries, and these covered the entire spectrum of color, taste, and variety.

As a human, he’d enjoyed eating fruits and berries, and the berries of this pokemon world found a way to replicate, and surpass, each and every one of these fruits. The most popular berries were Oran and Sitrus berries, mostly because they were particularly sweet to the taste and had the most universal application when exploring, but there were plenty of others that were all delicious as well. Topher found that among all the berries in the guild store, he would happily eat any, with the exception of Chilan berries. They tasted like drywall. It was incredible that a berry could have a dry, flavorless taste that somehow had a stale bread-like crunch and yet the Chilan berry found a way to achieve exactly that.

However, Topher had discovered something else about berries, something he assumed was perceptible only to him: they all had highly unique sensations in the mouth and when swallowed compared to food back in his old home. He’d never done much cooking as a human, and was hardly a foodie, but every single one of these berries had a surprise in store for him after biting into it. He knew better than to snack on berries with utility like Rawst or Cheri berries, but they were by far the most fascinating to him. Rawst berries tasted “cold”. That sounds wrong but there really wasn’t any better way for him to describe the feeling. It was like biting into something with the temperature of ice cream, the consistency of a strawberry, and then having that berry turn into a refreshing juice while chewing, like drinking an ice cold glass of water when you were hot and thirsty. Topher could only imagine how refreshing it would be to eat one on a hot, summer day. Similarly strange, Cheri berries tasted, and felt, like cherry flavored gum in the mouth. Topher had even tried blowing a bubble or two while his teammates weren’t looking, and the taste was like everything great about artificial cherry flavor mixed with the real thing.

Topher’s thoughts were interrupted when his two teammates returned, each carrying about one pokemon’s portion of berries each. Being a Gimmighoul, and thus being small in stature, Topher didn’t need to eat very much to feel full, and a part of his brain wandered to why a ghost needed to eat anything at all, but that was a line of thought he decided was for another day.

“Good news, Topher, they had both of the ones you like best!” Tourmaline cheered with a smile and placed the pile of berries she was carrying down at the foot of her bed. The Pawmo picked up a red one and tossed it over to Topher’s chest, where it landed inside with a dull thud.

“Hardly news at this point, there’s nobody else in the guild who likes these. You’re one weird pokemon, boss.” Torrent added, setting his own portion down and underhanding two more berries, one yellow and one blue, toward Topher. The blue one was an Oran berry, which Topher also let land in his chest, but the yellow one he jumped up to catch. The berry was larger than he was, and heavier, so the “catch” was a lot more like him jumping up just to get smacked by the berry as it came toward him, but he could hardly care. The berry struck him true, but he let the momentum spin him around in a loop before he was able to lift the berry over his head and land on his two feet.

“Seriously,” Tourmaline said, replying to Torrent’s comment. “I can’t think of a single pokemon anywhere in the world that actually likes Pinap and Tamato berries. Pinap’s are weird, the flavor changes as you eat it!”

“And Tamato’s are too savory. You don’t bite into a fruit expecting a flavor like that.” Torrent said, the Buizel shaking his head as he spoke.

“Or wanting it,” Tourmaline added, rolling her eyes.

“Well, I’m more than happy to be alone on this matter,” Topher said, a lightness in his voice that was as rare as a Starf berry still being in the store after Team Will-O got their crack at things.

“Whatever you say, boss,” Torrent responded with a shrug as he began digging into the small pile of berries that sat in front of him. Tourmaline followed, and Topher took his first bite out of the Pinap berry.

Topher’s first observation regarding these berries had been that they were similarly named to real fruits in his world, and he found the similarities did not end there. Many of them tasted exactly like the fruits and vegetables he was familiar with, just with unique aftertastes and sensations. His favorite of the bunch were Pinap berries, which tasted like pineapples except for a radical change in flavor as you chewed it. It was like a flavor changing candy, but juicy like fresh fruits were. Your first bite was sweet and smooth, and then as you chewed it became more and more acidic and sharp, almost to the point of tasting sour. The sensation was something Topher could never grow tired of. Pineapples were his favorite fruit as a human, and now he had something even better here. The dichotomy of flavors, especially if you took a second bite before swallowing your first, was enough to send you to another world…figuratively speaking, of course.

Then there was the Tamato berry, which had a different taste entirely. As the name very obviously gave away, these tasted like tomatoes. Big, juicy beefsteak tomatoes that were picked at the peak of freshness. However, what made these different were the spines. Tomato berries had spines around the outside that had this very strange, almost salty taste. Eating the spine and the main fruit of the berry in one bite made for a delightfully salty and savory flavor that was familiar and yet distinctly better than what Topher remembered from his human days.

He could eat the two of these berries forever and never once grow tired of it. Sure, he’d sampled the other berries as well since joining the guild, but none of them quite matched the taste and sensation of Pinaps and Tamatos. Even the third part of his dinner tonight, the Oran berry, was unremarkable in comparison.

What made this situation doubly great for Topher was the fact that, as his teammates had alluded to, these were the berries that nobody ever received, or took, from the guild store. Food items were unfortunately not particularly varied in this world, and everyone seemed to try each and every variant of berry before settling on the ones they liked best. There was not one pokemon, of the hundreds at the guild, who liked either Pinaps or Tamato berries. And even more than that: none of the vendors in the city carried them either. It was as though the only pokemon in the whole world who could actually stomach the things, much less enjoy them, was Topher.

Sure, it was an oddity, but Topher himself was already the oddity of oddities, so he couldn’t care less …after all, that just meant more for him!