"Alright, how do I look?" Sienna says as she spins around in front of a mirror in the room she is provided.

"Bri!" her Pokémon happily encourages her trainer from their spot next to her.

"Good," Sienna chuckles as she steps closer to the mirror to check her makeup again. "I only spent two and a half hours working on basic "natural" makeup. Look natural, they say. Girls are prettier without makeup, they say. What if I want to express myself for myself and not to impress the opposite gender?"

"Brionne?"

"Ignore me. Anyway, I'm out in ten, so I better look good. Like hell I have time to fix this anymore," Sienna says as she takes a step back from the mirror and walks over to the couch in the room she is waiting in.

"Bri! Brionne!" the seal cries as it flops over to the plush couch her trainer sits on.

"I am so not really for this," Sienna sighs as she leans back on the black couch. "I did absolutely no research before this. Watch, I bet she'll know my whole life story. Why did I agree to this?"

"Bri," Normandy reminds the woman as Bionne attempts to flop up onto the couch. Unfortunately, her flippers were meant for traveling in water, not carpet and couches.

"Right, because I would have been called a sissy if I didn't. Urg, that woman is awful. Seriously, who the hell calls someone an avocado whore? That's really not nice," Sienna complains as she helps up Normandy. "Even if it is true."

"Brionne!"

"Yes, I know I've had a month to prepare, but I was focusing on the other panels I had to contribute to. Urg, why the hell did the people running CiviCon think it was a good idea to make us the main attraction for the last day? I'm honestly so tired after the past two days."

Sienna is in the process of stretching as she hears the door open and a foreign voice say, "Ms. Abe, they want you to come up to the stage. They're starting in five minutes."

"Yeah, I gotcha," Sienna says as she stands up. She takes out Normandy's Poké Ball while saying, "Sorry, buddy. I can't exactly let you just wander around and get lost."

"Bri," Normandy sadly says as the red light from her Poké Ball surrounds and encapsulates her.

Sienna shrinks the Poké Ball and attaches it to the gold chain necklace she's wearing as she walks to the messenger sent to bring her. The messenger looks like a teenager from what Sienna can see. Ah, nothing quite like young people getting involved in the political system!

They quietly walk through hallways surrounded by other people rushing around. The occasional person pauses their running as they recognize Sienna and wave to her. She would smile back as she rushes ahead to keep up with the messenger. This kid can really slow down a bit.

He abruptly pauses and turns to a black door right next to them. He opens it and urges her inside. Sienna follows and walks down a corridor to a flight of stair which the messenger stops at. 

In the silence, Sienna can hear someone on the other side of the door speaking. She assumes it's the person introducing the debate as she can distinctly hear them saying, "Well, fellas, we were expecting a thousand people to be in this room. Guess how many are in here? Three thousand people!

Massive applause and cheering erupts from the crowd. Damn. Three thousand people here to watch two people debate. That can either end up wonderful or horrible depending on what happens. Oh, well. If all else fails, she can always start making herself a victim.

"Now, two years ago, when CiviCon first started, we got this person named Sienna Abe to debate Len Shapyro, and we had about three thousand people come to the convention—."

The crowd erupts in boos as a smile crawls across Sienna's face. Clearly, this would be fun.

After Sienna can no longer hear sound from the audience, the announcer continues, "And last year, we got this person named Alice Suzuki and seven thousand people showed up—."

Almost like clockwork, the audience broke out with boos again. Whether it is louder or not this time is something Sienna can't tell, but it's clear that the audience wouldn't be set against her.

"So, we decided that after a brief Tweet Twet spat between the two where one challenged the other to a debate, we may as well facilitate it and bring the two together. They're both quite smart, and they have a bit of a following. Not to mention, we now have eleven thousand people here at Civicon. Our moderater, Hankerson Cooplair, is going to come out now and start us off. Are you ready? Let's go!"

A mixture of cheers and boos erupt from the crowd, and Sienna forces a smile on her face as she waits to be called up. The messenger quietly opens the door to reveal a set of stairs leading up the stage where the microphone is being handed off to a young man Sienna's age.

That person bounds onto the stage and exclaims, "What's up CiviCon! Are you ready for this debate? Alright, without further ado, let's bring out the people you're here for."

Sienna prepares herself for the next hour of pain.

"First, we have our offline celebrity who is the Editor in Chief of her blog the Rational Radical and the Kahuna of Ula'ula Island, Alice Suzuki!"

The short brunette takes the stage in a mixture of cheers and boos while happily waving to the crowd. The woman takes a seat in a blue chair behind the moderator and smiles, adjusted the sleeve of her blue blazer. Ugh, she has to sit next to that woman. Great.

However, it's only when part of the crowd starts loudly chanting "Defend Alola" that the realization of what Sienna did truly sinks in. She agreed to debate the most prominent nationalist in all of Alola and did absolutely no research.

Oh, well. That could have been handled better.

Too bad.

"And to debate her, we have our online celebrity, the host of the blog Quaking Patriarchy and her MyTube channel named after her, Sienna Abe!"

Sienna walks onto the stage, her heels clacking against the wood as she waves to the crowd. As the crowd devolves into chants and boos, Sienna takes a seat in the other blue chair and crosses her legs, realizing that she is severely overdressed compared to the woman wearing jeans next to her.

Her eyes wander over to the woman to her left. As much as she hates to admit it, the woman is pretty attractive for a thirty-something. Even if Sienna hates to admit it, her hair is on fleek. Seriously, short hair doesn't usually look good on people with her face shape, but the curls really do a good job of framing her face.

And that's enough positive thoughts about her.

"I'm looking forward to this. Let's try to stay civil, alright?" that woman says with a smile as she extends a hand to Sienna.

"Likewise," Sienna says as she shakes her hand and makes the mistake of saying, "And your hair is looking just as intricate as always."

Only a slight twitch in the woman's smile makes Sienna realize the mistake she made in commenting on her hair. One might think she would remember one of the few words she has said to the woman is that she spends too much time on her hair, but no. She didn't remember.

"And I'm sure you enjoyed your avocado toast breakfast," the woman passive-aggressively says with a tight smile.

"I actually had chia seed and coconut milk pudding, thank you," Sienna retorts, only to earn a snort of laughter as the woman turns away to face the moderator.

"Now then, we're here to debate politics from every side of the political spectrum with two very different people. In terms of the format, I'll be posing a question to one of our participants and I'll let them go back and forth. After a while, I'll ask a follow-up question or change the topic. Are we ready to go, guys?"

Sienna hears a quiet laugh from the woman next to her as the crowd begins cheering. She allows herself to slightly turn her head to see the woman leaning back in her chair with her legs crossed. If Sienna has to be honest, the woman's confidence scares her quite a bit. 

Every other person she's debated in the past few days seemed to be as nervous as Sienna was, even though they did a good job of hiding it. This woman, however, seems scarily calm. She's just sitting there calmly, switching between staring at the moderator and the audience, all with a small smirk on her face.

No, she has to ignore it. That woman just wants to make Sienna nervous. That's what it has to be.

"Let's start with a topic that's current since it's the month of April. I and most people in this room have read the spat you two had on Tweet Twet, and Sienna brought up a pertinence topic. Yes, the first topic is the wage gap."

Oh, thank goodness, it's something easy.

"Now, Alice, you've said that, quote, "The idea that the wage gap is 79 cent to the PokéDollar is bullshit and has been debunked several times. Would you like to elaborate?"

"No," the woman simply says. "Facts are facts."

Sections of the crowd begin cheering and chanting in support of the woman's blunt response. Other sections of the crowd begin to realize they need to protest and try to start booing, but they're quickly overtaken.

"What I said is true. That statistic was gotten by getting the median hourly pay income of all women and pitting it against the median hourly pay income of all men. It doesn't take into account experience in the workforce, what kind of job is being worked, or how many hours are worked," the woman says once the crowd's volume reaches a level she can talk over.

Heh, this will be fun.

~*~

"Papa, what is Aunty Angelica doing?"

Nicholas wakes up from his afternoon stupor as his daughter pulls on his sleeve. After realizing he's fallen asleep in a very uncomfortable position at his desk, he stretches before he smiles at the little girl and says, "She's debating politics with someone who doesn't agree with her."

"Why wouldn't anyone agree with Aunty Angelica? She's so smart!" Elize says while Nicholas picks her up.

Nicholas puts her in his lap so she can see the computer screen better as he laughs, "Because she's absolutely insane. You can't understand what she's saying, but—."

"I can understand what she's saying! She's talking about how unfair it is that a few people have over eighty percent of the wealth while everyone else is poor!" Elize interjects.

Nicholas looks at Elize and realizes he needs to tell Angelica to shut up about politics around his daughter.

"That's not what she's talking about here. At least, I don't think so. I muted the video, so let's see," Nicholas mutters. 

"I didn't want this to be a religious debate, but if you want to talk about your Jigglypuff in space and how that's the only reason a person can be moral, then you bet it will. Morality is not dependent on a two-thousand-year-old book from the desert—."

"And we're muting that," Nicholas says as he remembers why he never watches Angelica's debates when Elize is home.

"What does she mean by a desert book?" Elize asks, her large blue eyes staring upwards at her father.

"They're having a religious debate, and that's one of the few things we've both agreed to not talk about to each other and you," Nicholas sighs as he closes the live stream tab.

"Why not? She said that no policy is off limits in a debate!" the girl innocently asks as Nicholas casually checks his work email on the weekend.

"Because we spent ten years arguing about it, and we've only made each other worse on the topic," Nicholas says as he notices an email from his boss he received an hour ago. "And your mom and I agreed that we'd let you decide on what you want when you're older. I'm just making an effort to not have her opinions sway you... More than they already have."

"...Okay," Elize says as if she understands she needs to stop asking questions but not anything her dad said.

"We can go eat lunch now, alright?" Nicholas says as he places Elize on the ground and gets up himself.

"Alright!" she says, dashing out of the guest bedroom that functions as an office.

Out of curiosity, Nicholas reopens the tab with the live stream with audio when he's sure Elize is out of hearing range. It takes only a few seconds for him to realize what is being debated thanks to the look on Angelica's face and the jeers of the audience.

Nicholas sighs and closes the tab again while muttering, "It really is a good thing that I stopped watching."

~*~

Alice allows a smile to spread across her face as she leans back in her chair. Despite the mixture of boos and cheering, she calms crosses her legs and observes the crowd. Alice made an excellent pivot to a topic she is more comfortable discussing in front of others. She's appealing to her base now, and that's all that she needs to know.

"How about no?" the cute and pissed special snowflake says as filler while she's clearly coming up with what else to say.

"How about yes?"  Alice says, giggling inwardly at the flabbergasted look on Sienna's face, "I'm making a simple argument, and you clearly can't combat it. I'm simply stating a fact that years upon years of oppression have taken place because of the white man. Therefore, it isn't too much of a leap in logic to say that white people are inherently violent and lacking in compassion." 

"They are no more lacking in compassion than any other race that has acted as a conqueror on another group of people have—"

"Oh, sure. Please, tell me what other race has colonized the planet and subjugated native people to decades of slavery and oppression after having killed most of the native population with diseases?"

"Okay, the diseases were impossible to avoid. The couldn't help the fact that they were carrying them."

Alice takes advantage of the brief pauses to respond, "Of all things to argue, you're picking the idea that they couldn't stop diseases from spreading? Really? Don't you have a better argument against me?"

The girl is unnerved. Unfortunately, that leads to her pausing.

And a pause in any debate is fatal.

"No answer?" Alice says with a smirk.

"I... There's not even a point to arguing against something so blatantly prejudiced and incorrect. You're welcome to argue it, but putting up with a racist isn't—"

Alice allows a grin to spread across her face as she responds to a comment she hoped she'd get. "Oh, now you're name-calling me a racist? I'll tell you that it is inherently impossible for me to be racist. I may be prejudiced, yes, but everyone is. Calling me racist is not just insensitive, but incorrect. It is impossible for me to be racist because racism describes a system of disadvantage based on race. However, I stand nothing to gain from such a system."

It's quiet. 

One can hear the jeering from the audience, but it's like white noise up on stage. All that exists is herself, her adversary, and the moderator who is likely to step in soon.

Alice is left waiting for a response that Sienna cannot offer. While she's sure that if she'd come on less aggressively that Sienna could rebuke her argument, that didn't matter. Alice had tripped her up, and there's no coming back from that. 

It's amazing how usually level-headed people can be messed up so easily by a supposedly insane argument.

"Let's move away from this topic since we only have a few minutes left. I'll pose this question to Alice first. In recent years, the homeless population of Alola has skyrocketed. You've spoken many times about this issue, and what I would like for you to tell us is your clear and concise opinion on how to deal with it."

"It's simple," Alice says as she adjusts her posture. "You just give them a place to stay. Studies show that it can be cheaper to give a person a small one-room apartment rather than let them stay on the streets. If you leave them out there, they'll inevitably end up costing money when they get sick or go through the court system."

Sienna remains silent.

Alice and the moderator both look over at her, but she just shrugs. "I can't say I can disagree. I think she's right."

That makes Alice pause. Alice is sure she's researched every single one of this girl's policy positions, and she has never been in favor of that specific policy. She actually came out against it a year ago. 

"Alright then. That's a rather calm ending to a passionate debate. I won't appoint a winner between these two, but I think we can agree the real winner here is everyone, especially you guys in the audience—"

Alice stops bothering to pay attention.

There's nothing she hates more than that "everyone is a winner" mentality, and there's no way she's listening to it longer than she has to.

Alice glances over at Sienna to see a look she knows quite well. The look on the girl's face is clearly one of humiliation being masked by apathy. That face is one of a person utterly defeated and breaking down in their mind, but they're unable to allow that to translate to the outside.

It's a look Alice loves seeing.

Seeing another person in a vulnerable state after having their entire core ripped apart by their beliefs being shredded; it produces a state of euphoria.

The moderator closes the debate, but that doesn't matter. He may as well not exist, for all Alice cares about at the moment is herself and the subject of her sadism.

It's only the movement of the cute girl she just utterly destroyed holding out her hand that wakes up Alice. She realizes she's supposed to shake the girl's hand before they can exit, so she does.

The two stand up and exit the stage in opposite directions before Alice finally realizes what she witnessed in that handshake.

The feeling of the dopamine running through Alice's being granted by the cheering of the crowd fades as guilt begins to set in. She takes a final step off the stairs before she realizes what her consciousness is screaming at her to do. 

It turns out crying is a good way to guilt trip someone.

Who would've thought?

Certainly not Alice.