Ruth Ono
Ruth looked up as Clover nudged at her head. She jumped when the tropius turned and looked pointedly at the other workers struggling to move around her.
"Oh! Oh right." Ruth sputtered, as she pulled out her pokeballs and recalled her trio. She put the pokeballs away in a belt pouch with a sigh. She never liked doing it. With how long Pokemon had been her only friends, thanks to that gang leader rumour, standing around with none felt strange. Even so, though, she had to admit a tropius did kind of get in the way occasionally. And Dug was just a calamity waiting to happen.
With Clover out of the way, Ruth could see Derek, behind where the tropius had been.
"Hey, Ru." He greeted. "What was with you leading his majesty's merry parade?" As he spoke, Oracle approached Ruth. Ruth bent to give her a quick scratch on the head and smiled over at Derek.
"We should probably stop calling him that."
"Now why would we ever do that," He said. He leaned to the side to look down the hallway. "These guys are early."
"Yeah, I guess trainers on this level must get really intense about stuff." Ruth replied. She stood up and stretched her arms above her head. Well, there was little use just standing around all day. She stood and started heading for the front door.
"Well, how else do you reach the top, I s'pose." He said, as he and Oracle moved to walk with Ruth. He frowned slightly when he thought Ruth wasn't looking, though. She rolled her eyes fondly.
"You're getting worried over nothing. They're just passionate folks, or excited to get time off or something." She assured her cyclopian friend. He nodded, conceding the point, but huffed a sigh as he looked over his shoulder.
"As much as they're treating it like time off anyway." He said.
"These kinds of people have no off button." Ruth stated. She spoke from experience. People determined to reach the top didn't let anything stand in their way or hold them back. Their only concern was how to get further and do better. Dead weight was shed as soon as possible.
Even if it was family.
And, wow, wasn't she being a Debbie Downer today. What brought that on? That'd been years ago. She shook her head, trying to clear the thought. She noticed Derek frowning up at her, and flashed him a reassuring smile.
Distracted, she hadn't noticed Threshield walk past, despite the greetings of the maids, until she heard his announcement to the trainers about King being his name, not his title. She snickered and looked over at Derek with an amused shrug. Derek grinned back.
"Don't care, still gonna call him it." He said. He shoved Ruth's shoulder playfully, though they both knew that Ruth only moved because she let herself be moved. Between being a good few inches shorter than her, and Ruth's sheer strength, Derek would need a run up to actually knock Ruth down.
"We're only making those mixups worse, y'know." She giggled.
Jewel Gem (Felicity Ono)
Sophie seemed entirely nonplussed over Felicity's intimidation tactic. Hmm. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to remove her sunglasses before trying that? She straightened up and coughed delicately into her hand. On top of that, another reference to her and Sadamatsu looking alike. One of them really needed to do something about it one day, but Jewel was too proud to let it be her. Soon enough, the Hoenn champion and Miss Blackwell returned from their battle.
As she removed her hat and sunglasses, finally, King Threshield emerged. She blinked at his announcement, but quickly looked around. She schooled her face and sniffed dismissively.
"Says something when you need to clarify that upon entering a room." She said. She made no mention of the fact that she herself had fallen for the mixup. That was for her to know, and nobody to find out ever. She straightened in her seat and crossed her legs daintily. There was a few seconds of silence, as the trainers seemed to size up Threshield, unwilling to be the one to speak up. Until the ex-Unova champion spoke up.
"Well It's nice to meet you and all Mr. Threshield," He paused a moment. "But I do have a question. Why exactly did you invite us all here? Not that I don't appreciate the trip, but surely you must have a reason for gathering top coordinators and champions together in one place?"
Hmm. He did have a point. The letter had said Threshield merely wanted to meet them, which wouldn't be the first such letter for Jewel Gem, but it was the first to offer such a nice trip to achieve it. Plus, it wasn't like he was just a fan of one of them, this was quite the smorgasbord of the best. She raised an eyebrow at Threshield, coolly awaiting his response.