Announcements: Cutting Costs (2024) » January 2024 Copyfraud Attack » Finding Universes to Join (and making yours more visible!) » Guide To Universes On RPG » Member Shoutout Thread » Starter Locations & Prompts for Newcomers » RPG Chat — the official app » Frequently Asked Questions » Suggestions & Requests: THE MASTER THREAD »

Latest Discussions: Adapa Adapa's for adapa » To the Rich Men North of Richmond » Shake Senora » Good Morning RPG! » Ramblings of a Madman: American History Unkempt » Site Revitalization » Map Making Resources » Lost Poetry » Wishes » Ring of Invisibility » Seeking Roleplayer for Rumple/Mr. Gold from Once Upon a Time » Some political parody for these trying times » What dinosaur are you? » So, I have an Etsy » Train Poetry I » Joker » D&D Alignment Chart: How To Get A Theorem Named After You » Dungeon23 : Creative Challenge » Returning User - Is it dead? » Twelve Days of Christmas »

Players Wanted: Serious Anime Crossover Roleplay (semi-literate) » Looking for a long term partner! » JoJo or Mha roleplay » Seeking long-term rp partners for MxM » [MxF] Ruining Beauty / Beauty x Bastard » Minecraft Rp Help Wanted » CALL FOR WITNESSES: The Public v Zosimos » Social Immortal: A Vampire Only Soiree [The Multiverse] » XENOMORPH EDM TOUR Feat. Synthe Gridd: Get Your Tickets! » Aishna: Tower of Desire » Looking for fellow RPGers/Characters » looking for a RP partner (ABO/BL) » Looking for a long term roleplay partner » Explore the World of Boruto with Our Roleplaying Group on FB » More Jedi, Sith, and Imperials needed! » Role-player's Wanted » OSR Armchair Warrior looking for Kin » Friday the 13th Fun, Anyone? » Writers Wanted! » Long term partner to play an older male wanted »

0
followers
follow

Kasimir Rheinallt

"Why yes, I *am* the brains of the operation. Thank you for noticing."

0 · 2,102 views · located in Kanto Region

a character in “Pokémon: Atonement”, as played by Aethyia

Description

.

.

.

.

.
.

.

.

.

.
xxImageImageImagexxxxxKasimirRheinallt
xxxxxxxxx◙◙◙◙* Male xxxxx◙◙◙◙* 26 xxxxx◙◙◙◙* 6'6" xxxxx◙◙◙◙* 195 lbs. xxxxx◙◙◙◙* TR Exec: Raikou

AAFIT x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ AAARES x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AAINT x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ AAACHA x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AABTL x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ AAAMED x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AACON x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌ AAAKNO x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌


--Image- TECHNOLOGY good with computers; TR tech specialist
MARTIAL ARTS former competitive fighter
GENIUS excellent memory, can quickly read and absorb info, extremely intelligent
x


Image I'm breathing in / I'm breathing out
- - - - - - - I'll cut the ties that hold me down .


ImageImageImageImageImage
-------Image

Image
Kasimir's an odd personality, in some ways. Technically speaking, he's the 'nerd' among the Three Beasts—that is, the one in charge of the technical aspects of their work, including communications, cracking, and security. He certainly has the skill for it; though he lacks a formal degree in computer science, he's received a lot of training, done a lot of his own learning from other sources, and has an estimated IQ approaching 180, and as such he's become quite excellent at it. He can talk the talk and walk the walk as well, and this does go along with a certain stereotype that he completely fails to live up to.

He's actually, on the surface of things, probably the most socially-adept of the Beasts, too, and in great physical shape, both of which are obvious and go a long way to causing a lot of confusion. He's been mistaken for Ryk by new people quite a lot, because he just seems like the fearless leader type. It's bad enough that he's taken to wearing a pair of fake, thick glasses around the office to look more like 'the tech guy.'

Of course, no one in their right mind would actually put him in charge of anything, and this is because of his other obvious personality traits: Kas is both lazy and an obvious flirt. In fact he can seem highly superficial to people who interact with him only casually, and this is something he cultivates on purpose. He's honestly not really fond of being taken too seriously, and thinks that his current spot as the number two guy on the team is the perfect one to be in. He can't get bossed around by too many people, and he doesn't have to make the big decisions. He just gets told what they're doing, and helps make it happen.

The charming, frivolous personality is part-truth, part deception. It works as a pretense because it's close to the truth, but it also very effectively masks a number of important things. The most important, of course, is that Kasimir is in fact a mole: a member of the Kanto Pokémon Special Forces (KPSF) planted in Team Rocket for long-term espionage. The KPSF hopes to accumulate sufficient evidence of wrongdoing and illegal activity to shut Team Rocket down forever. For this, petty thefts and the like simply aren't going to do—Team Rocket has bought enough of the international justice system that they need something huge, and it falls to Kasimir to find it. As one might expect, that's a lot of pressure, and he's constantly lying to everyone around him, which is exhausting.

It's also more than a little guilt-inducing, which is not a great sign. Kasimir hates to admit it, but he doesn't hate all of his coworkers, and he learned pretty early on that while Team Rocket is indeed corrupt as hell, most of the lives that will end up completely ruined if it's taken down are relatively innocent office worker types, people who believe in the stated mission and know little to nothing about the unsavory parts. He tries not to let that get to him too much, but...


Image Soon, kill the myth
- - - - - - - I'll begin / be the first to witness.


ImageImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImage
ImageImageImage
Image
Image
There’s honestly nothing too special to recount about Kasimir’s early years. He has a relatively functional family unit, he supposes. His parents are divorced, and he’s lived with his old man for most of his life, but his folks are still on friendly terms, and so he sees his mom pretty often, too. He’s the middle child of three, with an older sister and a younger one both. He and Crystal are pretty close in age—she’s thirty now, if he remembers right, but his baby sister Harper is only about twenty still, and actually not related to his mother at all, being only his half-sister by his father’s second wife.

There’s never been any crazy drama; they all get along pretty well. His father, Victor, is a dojo master, and runs the one in Fuchsia City now, though Kas was born in the Orange Islands. His mother Sheena still lives there, and runs an inn for tourists, as well as a restaurant. Crystal has since returned there to take over, while Harper and his stepmother Michelle, a highly-regarded attorney, mostly live in Saffron City after his dad’s second divorce only a couple of years ago. Kas was always a pretty independent kid—his grades in school were not fantastic, though he was generally acknowledged to be a very good student… just not the kind who turned his homework in when he was supposed to. He was always good with pokémon, and did the traditional journey thing at eleven like most kids do, returning at the end of a couple years to finish out his education. He’d considered making a run at the League, but never bothered with it, uninterested in the prestige or the challenge, in all honesty.

He entered a magnet high school for science and technology, one founded and sponsored by the legendary Steven Stone. It was about then that he started to take things a little more seriously, and was known for hanging around the computer labs after school hours whenever possible. He was also a fixture at his dad's dojo, though, which at the time was in Cerulean. He was a competitive fighter at the junior level, and won his fair share of tournaments, including a couple nationals. Though he had a lot of prospects for college and the like, a bad experience with Team Rocket in his youth led him down a rather odd path.

After he finished school, he enrolled in the Orange Islands Police Academy, entering basic training at the age of roughly eighteen. He excelled, his natural deductive skills, intelligence, and athleticism serving him well, and his savvy with both technology and pokémon making him stand out even among his peers. He was scouted into the Kanto Pokemon Special Forces right after graduation, and entered their ranks as something of a specialist in covert operations and tactics. Over time, he accumulated an impressive track record, and out of all his peers, he was chosen to lead an important operation—the long-term infiltration of Team Rocket, for intelligence.

His cover was deep—he really had to join the organization, work his way up through the ranks, and prove at every turn that he was cut out for the work Team Rocket did, including pokémon theft. While most of the other moles in the organization were weeded out over time, Kasimir has never been so much as suspected, as far as he knows. So far, he's been able to avoid getting too close with anyone in particular, having a large network of friendly acquaintances rather than any friends, as such, even eight years in.


Image I'm breathing in / I'm breathing out
- - - - - - - I'll be the enemy .


Image
Image

ImageImagexx--ImageImageImageImagePRINCESS C. CHARIZARD 
----ImageImage RASH

AAATK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AADEF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASTK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASDF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASPD x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
ImageImageSIGRÚN LUCARIO 
-ImageImage ADAMANT

AAATK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AADEF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASTK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASDF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASPD x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌


Image


xx--ImageImageImageImageWIDGET FLYGON 
----ImageImage SASSY

AAATK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AADEF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASTK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASDF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASPD x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
ImageImageLANI VAPOREON 
----Image CALM

AAATK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AADEF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASTK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASDF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASPD x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌


Image


xx--ImageImageImageImageNORA TYPE:NULL 
----Image BRAVE

AAATK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AADEF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASTK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASDF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASPD x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
ImageImageMEEP MAREEP 
----Image QUIRKY

AAATK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AADEF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASTK x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASDF x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AASPD x ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌


Image
Image


ImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImage
ImageImageImageImage
ImageImage
ImageImage
Cyrilla
AAFondnessxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARivalry xxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AAAttractionx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARespectxxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
This line is here to take space.
I'm so fucked.

He shouldn't have slept with her. He can't say he regrets doing so, because it was—well. It certainly isn't helping his muddled, uncomfortable feelings that he could feel how different this was even in the middle of something like that. Sex has always been mechanical for Kas. Fun, yes, but very dependent on things like skill and knowledge. With Cyrilla, he... felt. Feels, even now. And it's the last thing either of them needs.

x
x

Eryk
AAFondnessxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARivalry xxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AAAttractionx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARespectxxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
This line is here to take space.
You know, I really do admire the guy.

Of all the things Kasimir ever expected to discover about Eryk, a certain sort of innocence wasn't at all on the list. The guy's a Koga, for fuck's sake, and he's done shit for missions every bit as dirty as Kas has. And yet there's some part of Eryk that's just fundamentally untouched by all of that. Some part that hasn't turned cynical, disaffected, done with it all. Kas has to fake that. For Eryk, it's real, and that's amazing.

x
x

Anastasia
AAFondnessxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARivalry xxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AAAttractionx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARespectxxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
This line is here to take space.
She's such a good kid.

It's not really fair to call her a kid—there's a certain world-weariness to Ana that suggests she knows more about hardship than she lets on. She's sure as hell miles more mature than he was at nineteen. But there's also a curious kind of... something like innocence about her. It's a striking contradiction, and sometimes he finds himself wondering where it came from. Also her crush on Ryk is obvious and hilarious.

x
x

Aidan
AAFondnessxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARivalry xxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AAAttractionx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARespectxxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
This line is here to take space.
I'm going to come out of this owing him too much.

It's not just the training or whatever, though he has to admit he's found his discipline again, as well as maybe, some little touch of ambition he thought he'd lost a long time ago. Maybe it's just because as he is now, he knows he's outclassed by Aidan in every way: as a trainer, as an athlete, but most importantly as a human being. The guy's just fundamentally decent, in a way Kas really doesn't think he is. Go figure.

x
x

Nevena
AAFondnessxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARivalry xxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AAAttractionx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
AARespectxxxx ▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌▌
This line is here to take space.
What a dork. Gotta love her.

Nev's making a lot of progress, socially, though Kas isn't sure his pointers really have much to do with it. Still, it's nice to see. She's a brilliant scientist, but contrary to popular opinion, having a healthy social life isn't going to impede that. Work-life balance, one step at a time. Also, he's pretty sure she has a thing for boss, and he kinda wants to see what happens with that.

x
x

Image



Coding by Aethiya, inspired by maccotango's guide to the same.

So begins...

Kasimir Rheinallt's Story

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



October 10th
The Magikarp - Early Evening - Clear
Cyrilla Niav


To say that Cyrilla had been surprised by Eryk's message would have been an understatement. It had nearly floored her. He had decided to stay at Ana's because she was sick. “Leave it to Ryk to do something so sweet," she stated to herself. She couldn't help the smile that appeared on her face, though. It was nice seeing him be more of his old self, and Cyrilla was going to do everything she could to preserve that. He deserved to be happy, and she wasn't going to let Katia ruin that. Pushing the thought out of her mind, she squeezed the remaining water out of her hair.

She had convinced Kas, somehow, to go on this double date with her, Drake, and Mel. Of course it was under the pretense of a friends' outing, but that didn't mean it wasn't weird for her. And it had nothing to do with the fact that Kas was Mel's brother. It had more to do with the fact that it was Kas. She liked him a great deal more than she should have, but she couldn't help herself. She even thought that, somewhere in her black little heart, she was developing a small crush on him.

She'd killed it, of course, or at least she thought she had. She would just have to make sure it didn't turn into something it couldn't. It was partially the reason why she'd told him that she would meet him and the others at the Magikarp ahead of time. A friendly outing, and nothing more. She had worn a black camisole with a smoky grey sleeveless cardigan, over it. The dark grey leggings she had on were tucked into her knee high boots. It was a casual enough outfit, she supposed.

When she'd reached the place, she waited patiently for Mel and Drake to appear, along with Kas. He had a couple of other things to take care of at Ana's before he'd meet them, but he wouldn't be too late, from her understanding. She focused on Mel and Drake, though. This was for them.

She had to keep telling herself that.

He was first to arrive, though, ambling through the front door of the restaurant and approaching the hostess' stand with a bright smile. He'd dressed pretty casually himself, though fittingly for the season, with slim-fit khakis and a green plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows. His sunglasses were tucked into the vee formed by the unbuttoned top third of the shirt, though there was a white layer underneath. His hightops were green and white, and looked to be a bit on the worn side.

After a brief exchange with the hostess, he made his way over to the table, sliding into the booth next to her instead of across. Considering what they were here for, it only made sense. He smelled like tangerines and some kind of spice, which was about the usual with him. "Hey Cy," he greeted, shifting to lean his forearms on the table. The right one had both a pokégear and the bracelet she'd made him with the raikou charm on it; the two clinked softly together as he shifted. "Still waiting on the guests of honor?"

She couldn't help the bright smile that crossed her face as she glanced up at him. He really was tall, even now as he sat next to her. “Yep," she replied easily enough, cursing the way something felt fluttery in her guts. She mentally rolled her eyes at herself before blinking slowly. “I honestly thought they'd get here before you," she added, the smile shifting into a regular grin.

“You know, since you were being worked to the bone at Ana's, I figured you'd have gone back to the apartment to shower. I guess I was right, a bit. You weren't wearing that, earlier," she stated, huffing lightly.

He grinned back, the corners of his eyes narrowing with the force of it. "Well, Ana took pity on my poor soul when I told her what I was up to tonight. I didn't want to be late to our very important occasion, after all. Or show up smelling bad, for that matter." He wrinkled his nose slightly.

Just then, a chime from his phone prompted him to pull it from his pocket. "Ah. Mel says she and Drake hit traffic. She's asked us to put in their orders. You know what you want already or should we search the menu? This is basically a burger joint, right?"

“It is, yeah. Drake said they have the best burgers here, so I figured it was worth a shot," she replied, answering his second question before nodding her head. “And yeah, I know what I want. They have this burger that has brie and sliced green apples on it that I want to try," she stated, folding her hands out in front of her. It sounded good, she supposed.

“Oh, and onion rings because a good burger is always accompanied by those," she added, grinning a little to herself. “What about you, is there anything that piques your interest?" she asked, arching her brow in his direction.

He half-smiled, something a little strange about it. "I wonder..." he replied vaguely, though he had yet to touch the menu. He was, in fact, just looking at her, his chin resting in his left hand.

Breaking eye contact, he hummed and picked up the menu in his other, flipping through casually. "Ah, a bacon avocado burger. That'll do nicely." He nodded as if to himself, relaying that along with the other two's, but pausing so Cyrilla could order her own. "I think Niko mentioned the malts here being good," he added, "so I'll have one of the chocolate ones. Large, bring an extra spoon?"

The waiter nodded, making sure that was all before disappearing again. With a sigh, Kas stretched his legs out under the table. "Counting down the days until Katiapocalypse, huh?"

“You have no idea," she replied, leaning her head down on the table and resting it there. It was a little cold, but she welcomed it to cool down the way her face had heated up for a moment when he'd stared at her. She really needed to find a way to kill this crush of hers. It wasn't going to help her in the long run. Instead, she took a deep breath, and lifted her head back up and pursed her lips back at him.

“It wouldn't be so bad if she was here for NTR, but she's here for the family. And that's always worse. I'm a little worried that she might try to use Ryk's living situation against him, somehow, but... if he plays his cards right, and says it's for the mission, then there's not much she can do about it. The family has to do what's in the best interests of NTR and not for its own personal gains. That's just how it is," she spoke softly. Of course, there was a lot more to it, but she wasn't going to tell him everything.

Friend or not, he didn't deserve to get dragged into their mess regardless of what he'd told them. This... it was easier this way, she supposed.

He hummed softly, and after a moment, a large hand came down to gently rest on the crown of her head. He didn't muss it like usual though; it was more of a gentle patting gesture, as though he were trying to offer some kind of comfort. "I have a feeling there's more you're not telling me," he mused, repeating the stroke and letting his fingers trail lightly down her back this time.

"As your friend I admit it's a little frustrating, but I guess that just means I should work harder." He huffed a bit, still resting his chin on his hand. "So the story is he's living there 'cause it makes the mission easier, huh? It's a little funny how what used to be part of the truth is the cover-up lie now, isn't it?" He shook his head faintly.

"And what used to be the lie is getting closer to the truth, too."

She smiled dryly at him. “That's one way of putting it," she stated, pushing a heavy sigh through her nose. It was ironic, to be sure. Ryk living with Ana shouldn't have been more than him getting close to her so that they could get the information they wanted, however; she couldn't deny the fact that it was good for him. He was happier, and as Kas had pointed out not too long ago, Eryk was smiling. Faintly, but nonetheless, he was smiling again.

If the family found out that those smiles weren't feigned, that they were more genuine than they'd ever been... Cyrilla wasn't going to let that happen. She'd fight tooth and nail if she had to; she'd go back to her family, endure their wrath and everything else if it meant that Eryk could stay happy. Damn her own, because he deserved it. Her, though? No, she was far too gone. Far too despicable.

But this wasn't about her, or her happiness. This was about Eryk, and his happiness. And this was about Mel and Drake, and them finding something similar. Drake so that Kevin could stop stalking him, and Mel because she seemed like such a nice girl. Cyrilla hadn't lied when she said she liked Mel, more than she should have. It was nice, especially with Mel living with her and Kas. It felt like what a family should have been like, and not...

“I won't let her ruin it. Ryk's cover story is that he's doing it for the mission. And that's not a lie. I don't..." she swallowed thickly, furrowing her brows at herself. Get it together, Cy. Don't get too vested. “I won't let her take his smile away, again." Of this, Cyrilla was certain.

"Smile, huh?" he said, pausing for a moment in thought. His fingers continued to idle along her spine; it didn't feel like there was any intention in the touch—he wasn't trying to provoke her or anything. He just... seemed to want to do it, or maybe hardly noticed he even was.

He lifted his hand away, though, when the waiter approached with his malt, and he accepted the large glass with its thick stem. The chocolate drink was decorated with a bit of whipped cream on top and a cherry. Kas set the extra spoon next to her on the table like it had been his intention the whole time, then dug his own into the malt, which was definitely thick enough for spoons. He made a small hum of satisfaction, nudging the whole thing towards her in obvious invitation.

"So if you're protecting his," he asked with a strange lightness, still to all appearances intent on his food, "who protects yours?"

“No one," she replied easily enough, smiling a bit wryly. She wasn't sure if protecting was the word she would have used, but she was going to try. Her smile, though? No one protected her smile, because they couldn't. The smiles she had now would be taken away, again. There would be something, like there always was, and it would be gone.

“It's alright, though," she stated, taking the spoon and slowly dipping it into the malt. “Mine's not worth it," she stated calmly, taking a bite out of the malt. She blinked in mild surprise at the taste. “I guess Niko wasn't wrong; these are good," she hummed a satisfied note in the back of her throat as she glanced towards the front door.

“I guess traffic must be pretty bad if they're still not here."

"Maybe so," Kas replied, lifting his shoulders a bit as he took another bite out of the malt.

"Why don't you think your happiness is worth protecting?" He still wasn't looking directly at her, carrying on the conversation as nonchalantly as she was, in spite of the subject matter, which she knew he had to think was pretty serious.

The question caught her off-guard, honestly, and she blinked a little stupidly at him. It was a personal question, even if it didn't quite seem like it to him. She felt her brows furrow slightly before she set the spoon down. She didn't know how to explain that part to him in a way that would explain the way her family was. The way it just was.

“Because it never has been," she finally answered, speaking softly. “Because it's never really mattered to begin with, Kas. We're not supposed to be happy. We're not supposed to experience joy, nor be kind or warm, or... anything that is bright. If... if any of us shows even the slightest inclination to those things, they..." she swallowed thickly, turning her gaze from him. She rubbed absentmindly at her chest near her left clavicle.

It had been broken, once, because of her family. “They beat it out of us. That's what they did to Ryk, to..." herself and everyone else who had been so weak. “If anyone deserves it... it's Ryk. As long as he gets to be happy, I'll consider it enough. I'll consider everything having been worth it because he's finally happy." She hadn't realized how low and soft she'd been speaking. Maybe because she was trying to convince herself of something, but she couldn't be sure of what. She breathed out slowly, and shook her head.

"None of that answers the question, you know," he pointed out, his tone softer now. He set his spoon down, too, and caught his jaw in his hand again so he could turn his head to regard her steadily. "I asked why your happiness isn't worth protecting, and what you told me was your family tries to snuff it out, and Ryk deserves to be happy. I'm sure both of those things are very true, Cyrilla, but neither of them is a reason you shouldn't be happy, too. There's no rule that says 'there may be only one happy Koga, now choose.'"

His eyes bored into hers, the expression on his face much more serious than the ones Kas usually wore. "I'm sure you think it's selfless, or at least the better option, to be willing to give up your own joy in the name of his. And there's something admirable about it, certainly. But it doesn't have to be one or the other—and he's not going to be happy if you're miserable, you know. He cares about you more than that."

She huffed lightly at him. She wasn't laughing at what he said, but because he didn't understand how her family was. “I'm actually being selfish for that. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, and that's where you're wrong, Kas. I know he cares about me, and I love him, too, but..." she wasn't entirely sure what to say, honestly.

“To be honest... I don't know. I think... my happiness isn't worth protecting because no one else can protect it. If I'm protecting Ryk's... who else could do it besides him?" Who else could protect her happiness if not Ryk? He was her best friend, the one she'd leaned and relied on for so long. He was the only one who could stand against the family, and she didn't want him to be the one to protect her happiness. She didn't want him to get hurt because of her, because that is what would happen, in the end.

She smiled a little ruefully, though. “Maybe one day... it won't be like this. Maybe one day I won't have to be here, in a place I don't want to be, and doing things that make me sick. But I suppose it's just wishful thinking." It certainly felt like it.

He sighed quietly. "You really don't get it, do you?" he murmured, more to himself than to her, it seemed.

Before he could elaborate, though, the waiter showed back up with their food, including for the two who still weren't yet present, and Kas rolled his eyes, removing his phone from his pocket and firing off a text. "Honestly, Mel. Traffic doesn't get that bad on the island."

As if on cue, Mel and Drake appeared a few moments later, settling into the booth on the other side. "Hey guys," she said, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth. "Sorry we're late."

Maybe she didn't get it, but she supposed she was grateful for Drake and Mel's appearance. She offered them a bright smile, and arched a brow at the two of them. “Yeah, sorry we're late. We were taking a Farfetch'd when it broke down, so we hoofed it the rest of the way," Drake added, smiling sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“Oh, and thanks for ordering our stuff for us!" he added, causing Cyrilla to chuckle lightly.

“Hm, well you're lucky they just brought it out so it's still warm," Cyrilla stated as she glanced at her burger. “Hm, now let's see if these are as good as you've hyped them up to be, Drake," she added, grinning at him.

“Of course they're good! This place has the best burgers, ever. I'll have you know that yours truly is a certified burger master," Drake stated, looking rather smug about the declaration. Cyrilla rolled her eyes lightly.

Mel let out a soft snort. "'Certified Burger Master'?" she repeated, a broad grin blooming over her face. "There's no way that's a real thing, you dork." She nudged him in the side with her elbow, clearly enjoying herself; perhaps the walk over had broken any ice there might have been.

"I think it's a self-appointed position," Kas added dryly, taking a bite out of his food and reaching for the malt. He used the straw this time, though.

"Is there a cherry in that?" Mel asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

Kas sighed, using a clean spoon to fish it out. "Fun fact, everyone: my sister is crazy about cherries. I don't know why, but she is."

"Strawberries too," she corrected, accepting the cherry and eating it right off the end of the stem. "Especially with chocolate. Mirmir likes citrus fruits and cream, though."

“I like pineapples, to be honest. There's something a little sweet and tart about them that makes them taste really good. Never been too big on strawberries, though. They're too sweet sometimes," Drake stated, rolling his own eyes and feigning a slight hurtful look when Mel had elbowed him. “What about you, Cyrilla? Since everyone's talking about favorite fruits and otherwise," he added, titling his head in her direction.

“Mangoes with tajin seasoning. It's really good because the seasoning itself is made with salt, chile powder, and dehydrated lime. You might actually like it on your pineapple; it pairs really nicely with it," she answered easily enough. Besides, tajin seasoning wasn't as spicy to her as it was for most people. It just added a sort of boldness to the fruit. Maybe it was because she just liked spicy things?

“Ugh, how do you all do spicy things! I've tried... really, I have, but I can't," Drake almost sounded like he was whining.

“Because we're not lightweights like you, of course."

“Fair."

"Honestly I think it has more to do with being raised on it," Mel noted with a little grin. "For example, Orange Islands cuisine is usually pretty spicy, so we're used to it. Kas is crazy, though—he can do things like just munch his way through a jar of picked gengar peppers like it's nothing. Not even I'm that insane."

He shrugged. "Dad kept them in the fridge, is all. I got hungry."

Cyrilla was certain her eyes were wide with awe as she blinked in Kas's direction. “Gengar peppers, seriously?" she stated, trying to comprehend the fact that he ate them at all. She enjoyed spicy things, but even she had her limits. Gengar peppers were too much for her. “Wow. I did not think anyone could eat those regularly," she added. Drake looked about as shocked as Cy felt, so at least she wasn't alone in that respect.

“Yeah, well if you two grew up on it, what's your excuse, Cy? You're not from the Islands, are you?" he asked, causing Cyrilla to snort softly.

“If I was, I'd have a beautifully tanned complexion like Mel and Kas, here, but no. I'm not from the Islands. I'm from Fuchsia, and my love of all things spicy came from just being subjected to eating all kinds of foods for various reasons," she replied, shrugging lightly. It wasn't a lie; she had to be comfortable eating all kinds of things in order to complete missions and such ilk.

"Same," Kas said, "except my family thought they were doing me a favor. Don't tell Crystal I said this, but when she was learning to cook, she was terrible, and I was the taste tester."

Mel laughed. "You'd never guess it now—she's literally a chef with actual stars, just like Sheena, and everything she touches becomes delicious, but he's not wrong."

"And that's the story of how I became a human trash compactor, willing and able to eat massive quantities of pretty much anything that can be eaten."

"Oh, remember that time she experimented with insect-based dishes for like a month?"

"Yes, Melly," he replied, widening his eyes and giving them a faraway look seemingly on purpose. "Yes I do. So. Many. Ants."

She tried. She really tried not to laugh, even going so far as to place a hand over her mouth, however; Cyrilla failed. She started laughing, and also snorted at the same time which caused her face to turn a light pink. “Well that explains a lot. I guess compared to their cooking, mine's probably more mediocre," she stated lightly, feeling the laugh settle down into something of a small smile.

"There it is," Kas murmured, low enough that only she could catch it. He gave her a sly wink, then continued at a better volume. "And don't put yourself down. Your food's delicious."

“Oh, Kas, I'm sorry, man. That sounds like it was disgusting, all those bugs," Drake looked like he'd seen a ghost, his complexion paling just a bit. Cyrilla arched a brow and leaned on her arm.

"At least he got a lot of protein," Mel joked. "Those muscles didn't come cheap."

Kas groaned. "Don't remind me. Dad's the worst. More importantly, Drake, I've always wanted to know: did the old man ever like... make you do riddles and stuff at home? Or did he actually just confine that shit to the Gym?"

“Oh. My. Arceus." Drake began, causing Cyrilla to tilt her head. She was a little curious as to what he had to say on that. From what she remembered, Blaine had implemented riddles and the like as a function of his gym challenges. No one was allowed to battle him until they could solve a few riddles. They weren't easy, from what she'd read. Drake turned his attention towards Mel, first, looking rather serious about what he was going to say.

“First off, I will never put you through that horror. You or any other gym challengers. Ever. Secondly, he made me memorize them when I was seven. SEVEN! Do you know what that does to a kid? And then he tried to make me agree to keep the stupid riddles as part of the gym challenge when I took over. He even wanted me to keep the gym on the volcano. That was a dangerous place to have it in the first place!" He was a little red in the face by the time he'd finished. Cyrilla chuckled softly as Drake took a long drink from his cup.

“Oh, and no, he didn't confine them to the gym. He still tries to make me implement riddles back into the gym."

Mel was laughing so hard she was at serious risk of losing some of her lemonade out her nose. She managed to save herself, but coughed into her elbow a few times, still unable to quite suppress her amusement. Sniffing, she wiped a few stray tears from her eyes. "Your face," she managed, voice pitched high and soft with the effort it took to speak.

Kas snickered. "Don't hold back; tell us how you really feel," he said with a grin.

Even Cyrilla found herself snickering softly.

“Guys... guys you don't understand. Those riddles. They gave me nightmares. Sometimes I'd wake up and gramps would be standing in my doorway, grinning like a madman and holding up a book of all of his old riddles. I swear he could smell the fear and just come running."

“Oh, poor Drake," Cyrilla stated as she tried to contain her own amusement. “Sounds like it wasn't easy living with Blaine."

“Seriously. You have no idea."

"Well at least you're not in a volcano anymore," Mel said, popping an onion ring into her mouth and chewing it over. "Mom says thanks for that, by the way."

“Mom?" Drake looked vaguely confused before his eyes widened slightly. “You mean your mom's Michelle Kane?" he asked a little incredulously. “Huh, I can sort of see the resemblance. And, well, I guess she's welcome? I know gramps had a lot of damages to the gym whenever he was the gym leader, not to mention the amount of trainers that were injured as well just trying to get up there. If there's anything else I can do to help her out, just let me know. I don't want gramps' problems following her everywhere now that I'm the gym owner or leader, or whatever you want to consider me."

Cyrilla arched an amused brow at his choice of words.

“Is that right?" she stated, feeling something sly cross her features. “What do you think, Mel? What do you want to consider him?"

Next to her, Kas snorted softly, but didn't interrupt, observing the byplay with some interest.

Mel, on the other hand, shrugged, failing to totally suppress a grin but managing a sort of coy nonchalance nevertheless. "Well I dunno, Cy. That's a good question, but I think it should be a mutual decision. So maybe I should be asking Drake what he'd like me to be to him. I did already ask him out tonight, after all. Ball's in his court." She arched an eyebrow, but didn't seem to be demanding an answer immediately or anything.

Cyrilla did her best not to outright grin at the expression on Drake's face. He looked absolutely mortified for some reason, but she had a guess.

“You asked me out!? Is that what this is? Is this supposed to be a date?! Oh... my arceus, if I'd known that I wouldn't have chosen the Magikarp!" he stated, burying his face in both of his hands. Cyrilla could see the tips of his ears were turning pink, though, and snickered softly.

“He's so adorable. Mel, I think you might have just embarrassed him into adorable mode," she stated, trying not to laugh at him. He blinked slowly, though, and glanced at Kas and Cyrilla.

“So... was this supposed to be a double date? Is that why the two of you are here!? Ugh, I would have chosen something a little different for all of us..." he trailed off, causing Cyrilla to roll her eyes.

“It's not the place that matters, Drake. It's mostly the company, and besides, Kas and I are just here as spectators. Wouldn't really want to miss this," she stated, tilting her head slightly in the direction of Kas, and blinking about as innocently as she could. Drake pursed his lips together, though, causing Cyrilla to chuckle lightly.

"I wasn't trying to deceive you about what this was," Mel added, smiling a little more gently and patting Drake on the back. "But I didn't want to make a big deal out of it. I was hoping you'd pick someplace fun and comfortable, and you did. It's not like I'm carrying a bunch of fancy stuff around in my trainer's bag anyway, so casual is exactly right."

"See? No harm done." Kas's eyes were narrowed with mirth, but it wasn't even remotely mocking at the moment. He was watching Mel, Cy noticed, and smiling at the way she was looking at Drake, whose head was in his hands. There was a tenderness to his expression that was rare; he shook his head a moment later and it was gone.

Cyrilla felt something tight in her chest, something that seemed to squeeze her heart, but she ignored it. Had to ignore it. Drake was still pouting, though, as he regarded Mel with an even stare.

“I would have at least suggested Jo's. They have more options as far as food goes. It's just burgers here," he muttered softly, taking a drink from his cup. Cyrilla rolled her eyes faintly, but was still smiling nonetheless.

“Well you did say this place had the best burgers. I don't think you could have chosen any better, really. And besides, you still haven't answered the lady's question. What would you like to consider her, and vice versa?" Cyrilla asked, watching as Drake's face turned a bit pink.

“Oh, uh, well... I, um..." he began, stuttering a bit. Cyrilla supposed it might have been something to do with Kas being present, but Drake rubbed absently at his neck before shrugging. “Well, I'd like to say that we're at least acquaintances," he stated, glancing in Mel's direction. It looked like that was all he was going to say, however; he smiled a bit.

“But if she's willing to be my friend, maybe we can go from there? Just because this is a date doesn't mean you just jump into something... I mean, you're a nice girl and all, Mel, but if we're not really compatible, why bother with anything further, right? If it turns out we make awesome friends, that's great! If... well, if it turns out we are compatible... maybe we just take it from there?"

Mel pretended to consider this, releasing an exaggerated hmm and stirring the ice in her cup with her straw. "I think I can get behind that," she agreed with a little nod. "But only if you do me two favors: firstly, let me have your number, and secondly, call me sometime. I've got all the free time in the world on the road, but you're busier than that so I'll let you decide when. Deal?"

“Deal. Oh, uh... just be prepared that when I do, I get nervous sometimes so it might take me a few tries..." Drake replied, grinning slightly as if to himself. Cyrilla rolled her eyes, but they were adorable. The both of them together like that... it almost made her think of something before she shook the thought from her mind. Drake reached into his pocket, pulling out his wallet and retrieved a card from it. “It has my number and a line to the gym just in case you can't reach me on my phone."

“Aren't you two so adorable," Cyrilla couldn't help herself.

"Yep," Mel replied shamelessly, lightly plucking the card from Drake's fingers and programming both into her phone. "We're the cutest." Her fingers flew quickly across the screen and then she looked up with a grin. "Sent you a text, so now you have mine, too."

“Ah, thanks," Drake stated, his face turning a light shade of pink as he glanced at his phone. He seemed to program Mel's name into it before turning towards Cyrilla and Kas, coughing lightly into his hand. Cyrilla thought it really was adorable, and couldn't keep her laughter contained. It wasn't loud, thankfully, but she shook her head in their direction.

“Well, since that's all been figured out, how about we go to the Alcremie factory after this? I hear they make the best cheesecake, and it'll be on me!"

"Oh no," Kas deadpanned. "You've discovered the Rheinallt family weakness: free delicious food."

Mel laughed. "I think that's just a normal human weakness, honestly. But it sounds great." She beamed at Drake, and then the rest of them, so genuinely happy it was plain to see.

“Mel's right, it is just a normal human weakness. I'm not gonna say no to free food, especially free cheesecake," Drake stated, nodding his head as if to agree. Cyrilla faintly shook her head, but she was still smiling from all the laughter.

“Well as Kas and Mel both already know," she began, arching a brow at the both of them, “I like feeding people. It... makes me happy when I can, especially if it's something I made. Feeding people by buying them food makes me happy, too, so... I guess you're kinda stuck with me always buying or making you shit whenever you lot are hungry."

It did make her happy whenever she did small things like that. She wasn't entirely sure why, though.

"Man, I'm gonna miss this island when I leave," Mel said, taking her check from the waiter who'd just reappeared.

"All the more reason to come back and visit once in a while."

“You should come visit whenever you can. Drake here would love a visit, too," Cyrilla stated, accepting her own check as Drake took his. He sputtered a bit, but nodded his head in agreement. This... it was nice. Cyrilla couldn't help but feel she'd miss this, too.

She quietly cried herself to sleep that night.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


October 12th
Seedot Condominiums - Afternoon - Clear
Kasimir Rheinallt


Kas opened up the back of the loaner van, wondering if the shiny black with its characteristic red stripe was a bit... much for a quiet neighborhood like this. Almost certainly so, but he didn't have his own, so company vehicles it had to be. Removing the two plain silver briefcases from the back, he closed the van doors over with his foot, then made his way into the lobby.

In pretty much every way that The Cloyster was modern and shiny and chrome, these condos felt more blended with the natural island landscape. Stucco walls, clay roof tiles, an abundance of not-especially-well-tended local flora, and a distinct atmosphere of being lived in. He figured there were probably a lot more families and old folks in this block than his own, which seemed to mostly house singles, young couples, or people who needed a home in Cinnabar, but who lived most of their time elsewhere.

Of course, it would seem none of the friendly homeyness made it particularly safe as a haven from a stalking ex, so there was that. But then, that was the problem that he in particular was here to fix.

Unsurprisingly, security didn't do more than nod at him as he passed, suspicious van or otherwise. It probably had a lot to do with the fact that he'd gone full nerd-chic today, and looked about as threatening as the average pencil-pusher, which was to say not at all. But some of it was probably the fact that it was broad daylight and he looked like he knew exactly where he was going.

When he reached Drake's unit, he shifted his burden so that both briefcases were in one hand, then knocked with the other. "Hey Drake, it's Kas," he called out, figuring the extra assurance that he wasn't Kevin would be welcome enough.

It took a minute or so before the door opened, but it wasn't Drake who greeted him. It was Axe and Brick Jr. They both regarded Kas for a moment before stepping to the side, allowing Kas inside the apartment. Axe stuck his head out of the door, glanced both ways and closed the door behind them.

“Hey, Kas! In here," Drake's voice called out as he popped his head out of what might have been his bedroom. “Sorry, I would have answered the door, but... well, Axe and Jr. like doing that now," he chuckled nervously. He cleared his throat before he went back into his room, only to come out a second later with a towel in his hand.

“The, uh, faucet was leaking in the bathroom again. Had to fix that before it flooded the apartment," he stated as if to explain the towel in his hands. “Can I get you something to drink, or eat, or..." he trailed off.

Kas shook his head. "No need for that. But we should probably sit down and discuss what you're after in a security system. I can do a lot of stuff, but depending on what your goals are with it, what equipment I'll set you up with is going to change."

It wasn't like he wanted to make the guy talk about the exact nature of what stalking was going on. Even so, that information would be useful if he was comfortable sharing it. Kas set down his briefcases next to an armchair and took a seat, bringing his legs up to cross underneath him. "It's on the house, so we don't have to worry about cost considerations, but... lemme put it this way: I did the security setup for the main vault at Saffron HQ. There's an entire monitoring room just for the controls and shit. So the more we can narrow down your goals here the uh... less like that it'll have to be."

For a moment, it looked like Drake was going to protest the part of this being on the house. He shook his head, though, as he took a seat across from Kas, and pursed his lips together. “I guess what I'm looking for is something that will at least alert CIPD a little faster that someone is breaking into my house. I don't know how many times I've come here and found," he paused, reaching around the couch he was sitting on, and pulling a few letters from inside the cushions, “these. I've kept them to see if they'd be any use to CIPD in buidling a case against Kevin, but so far they haven't said anything."

“I think what I need is something that will also record him in the act in clear picture so I have evidence that it is him, and not some random fan." He visibly shuddered at the word. “I don't need anything too high-tech, but something that'll just... give me the proof I need."

Kas nodded. "Okay, so it sounds like you want a good alarm system with a direct line to the PD and the best cameras I've got. That's doable. Which rooms do you want to cover? Just this front one here, or..." He could understand if the answer was yes. Loads of people were not comfortable being filmed going about their business, and that made complete sense. But there were ways around it. "I can set the film to erase every twenty-four hours if the alarm's not tripped, if that's a concern."

“It's a pretty small apartment," Drake began, motioning around his apartment. “I mean, I hardly spend time here to begin with, so I wouldn't mind having a camera just about everywhere, really. Oh, but maybe not the bathroom? That... that would be a little too much, I think. I rotate my time between staying at the gym, and staying here, so a camera in just about every room would be sufficient."

“Oh, and that would be good. The film being erased every twenty-four hours, though I'd make it thiry-six hours just in case. Because even if he doesn't trip it, it might actually still catch him hanging out or something like that."

Kas snorted a little at the mention of the bathroom, but let the opportunity for a joke pass by. The rest made sense, of course. "Sounds fine to me. Anything additional you want? I can set up your phone to record anytime his number dials you, that kind of thing." It seemed like Drake was mostly interested in collecting evidence, which from a legal standpoint would probably help him a fair bit. And he could certainly help with that.

"I can also do a setup on the Gym if you want, though that'll probably take more gear than I have with me right now. Would have to order the parts in, and all that."

“Oh, you know what, that sounds like a good idea. If you could do that for my phone, I'd greatly appreciate it. As for the gym setup... that would be amazing if you could, but I'd like to pay you for that. Er... well if you do installment payments. Despite being a rather well-known gym leader, I don't make that much as one." Drake seemed rather pleased with the outcome of Kas's help, and nodded his head in a sagely manner for some reason.

“But if not, that's fine. I can get gramps to pay for it since he kind of owes me, anyway, the old bastard," he muttered the last part lowly. Axe made a soft snorting sound as if he'd found it funny.

Part of Kas wanted to insist. This kind of cause was... close to his heart was putting it lightly. But he could understand that some people weren't comfortable accepting things for free, so he nodded, already mentally calculating the costs of the equipment and cutting them in half for what he'd charge for the Gym. "Sure. I'll send you an invoice. No rush on the installments; whenever you can make one is fine. Or just buy my drinks for a couple years; either-or."

He grinned, pulling on of the briefcases up onto the coffee table and opening it. There were several small, concealable cameras inside, along with the wiring necessary to record the feeds. "Do you have a laptop or something? I can set it up so you can access the feed whenever you like, and save anything from the archived footage that seems important before it gets erased. There are also services you can hire to do that for you, but since you seem to be collecting your own evidence anyway I can tell you they're probably not worth it if you have the time yourself."

“Depending on how much it'll cost me, I just might be buying your drinks for several years. You don't look like the type who drinks a lot in one sitting, though given how much you, Ryk, and Aidan all drank that night... you might be right," Drake replied slightly amused. He reached under his couch, though, and pulled out a laptop that had a bit of dust on it. He smiled sheepishly at Kas as he handed it over.

“I've been meaning to get a new one, but I don't really use it much... so... this is what I have as far as laptops go."

"Ughh... this is ancient!" Kas made an exaggerated face of disapproval and took the laptop as though it were somehow infectious. "Arceus, does this even have enough processing power?" He recognized it on sight, of course, and it did, but it was good that Drake didn't appear to use it for anything else, because it wasn't going to be able to do much other than handle the surveillance software once he rigged it up properly.

"You're not making it easy on me, Bellamy," he joked. "Anyway, if I can borrow your phone for about half an hour I'll set that up first. The rest of this should take me the afternoon or so, but if you've got somewhere to be and you can trust me in your house, you don't have to stick around." He smiled a bit. "I won't blame you if you don't want someone wandering around in here without supervision, though."

“Yeah, well, the one at the gym is newer, at least," Drake stated, waving a nonchalant hand in front of his face. He pursed his lips together, though, before sinking into his chair. “I do have to go to the gym to take on some challengers. I'm getting a bad rep as being rather lazy and not really hosting any challenges. The people upstairs are getting kind of annoyed with me about that, and say that if I want to keep the gym, I have to at least have ten to twenty challenges done by the end of the month."

“But no worries; I trust you to do what you have to do. I mean, even if you do go snooping around, you won't find much except a bunch of old comics and maybe a soda can or two underneath the bed. Goopy likes playing with them and pushing them around underneath there. Drives me insane when I'm trying to sleep," he muttered, huffing lightly in Kas's direction.

"Ha—fair enough." Kas felt a twinge of sympathy; gym leading was a lot more work than the average person thought it was, and the league supervision was pretty much constant. If he didn't get his duckletts in a row, there could be a serious inquiry into that stuff. "I happen to know you'll be giving out at least one badge this month, so maybe that'll help you get them off your case." He grinned, already removing various camera components from his briefcase.

Drake barked out a short laugh. “Yeah, you might be right, though honestly, at the pace I've been going, it might be about three," he stated as he stood from his chair. He dusted off his shorts, for some reason, before arching a brow at Axe and Brick Jr. “Alright, guys, let's head out and leave Kas to do his spy stuff. Oh, and if you do happen to get thirsty or whatever," he paused, turing his attention towards Kas, “there's a couple of sodas in the fridge and maybe a beer or two. I forget they're in there so they might not be as good as the soda."

Kas considered this for a moment, then nodded. "At least it takes a while for booze to go bad."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



October 16th
Marna's - Afternoon - Windy
Eryk Nero


Eryk threw back the drink in his hand a lot quicker than he wanted. It burned on the way down; vodka always had a tendency to do that, but he didn't mind right now. He'd received word about an hour ago that Katia would be arriving on Cinnabar Island within the next hour or so, and he wanted to be as drunk as he possibly could. It probably wasn't the best plan to go with, but he really didn't want to deal with her right now. Anastasia still had a light cold, though she looked like she was recovering nicely. Pushing the thought away, he sighed heavily and glanced at the other two.

He'd invited them along mostly because he didn't want to be alone when Katia showed up. Aidan had previous experience in dealing with her, but Kas was new to the whole thing. He felt a little bad for bringing Kas into it, but he'd wanted to be, apparently. Pushing a sigh through his nose, he shook his head faintly.

“Are you ready?" he asked, though he wasn't sure why. He sort of already knew the answer to it.

"No," Aidan replied in a grumble. He was drinking much more slowly than Eryk, but had also already made his way through two cigarettes and was starting in on a third. "No one's ever ready to deal with Katia. And if you think you are, that just means you're even more not than those of us who know better."

"Yikes," Kas replied, sipping from his beer. He was pretty relaxed, to all appearances, but then he was the one who had no idea what they were in for. "Also, not to like... make it worse or anything, but do we have a plan for what to do if she wants to like... visit the shelter or something? I can't imagine letting her talk to Ana is anyone's idea of a good time."

“First off," Eryk began, narrowing his eyes a bit in Kas's direction, “she has no business at Ana's shelter. This is our mission; she's not allowed to interfere with it unless she gets permission from Gregorovich." Eryk doubted Gregorovich would consent because this was time-sensitive, and Katia was not exactly the type of person you sent in for missions that required something of a delicate approach.

“Secondly, you're not wrong," he added, turning in Aidan's direction. “No one is ever ready to deal with her shit. She'll be here in the next hour or so; I suggest we figure out the best course of action to take so that she doesn't fuck anything up." All of his hard work would be for naught if she somehow let something slip. And if it messed with either him or Cyrilla, Eryk knew she would do it on purpose.

"Rheinallt has a fair point, though," Aidan murmured around the cigarette. "She could easily just introduce herself as your relative. And if you told Ana she was visiting, it might be stranger for her not to stop by the place you're living. Or at least I could see her using that as an excuse. If we want to head her off before she gets the chance to do anything like that..." he hummed.

"Why not, uh... volunteer the info?" Kas shrugged when Aidan looked at him curiously. "You, as her former teammate, do her a 'solid' and brief her on Ryk's current missions and stuff. Make it clear that he's doing important shit for Gregorovich that she can't mess with in the process. She gets the impression you're at least kinda willing to play ball with her plans, she learns not to go for that angle, awkward collision avoided."

Eryk arched a brow at the suggestion. It might help in that sense if Katia knew what he was doing. It would give her a reason to back off for now, and wouldn't necessarily jeopardize whatever they had going on. If Aidan fed Katia the information, it would get her off of his and Ana's back. That was the most important thing, right now. He blinked a bit when he realized which direction his thoughts had taken. Ana and this mission were the most important things right now. It was the mission that was important.

“You said you would take one for the team, might as well make it this. And..." Eryk paused as he narrowed his eyes somewhat, “she might just tell you things that will help us in the long run, too. She's more willing to listen to you than to anyone else who isn't Gregorovich or part of the family." Katia never shut up about things like that, and part of Ryk wondered if Katia had something for the man. He huffed lightly at the thought.

“Just be careful or she'll decide you're her next target."

"Not funny, Nero," Aidan replied, though the irregularity in the smoke cloud he exhaled somehow suggested inaudible laughter. "But sure. I'll make sure she knows, I guess." He picked up his low tumbler of whiskey and took a sip, setting it back down on the table with a soft thud.

"She coming in by boat, or taking a charter plane in?" he asked suddenly, but a moment later, the reason became clear. A small aircraft droned in the distance, audible even over the wind. They weren't especially common on the island—boat transport was the standard, though there was a small local airport on the backisland where planes could be chartered in and out.

Eryk groaned lightly, and downed his sixth or eighth shot of vodka. He couldn't really remember what number he was on. “She's coming by plane; something about it taking too long on a boat," he answered. “She's a little early if that's her plane, but it wouldn't be the first time she's lied about the time she'd be somewhere."

Really, Eryk should have known better. Katia was always early to the places she'd say she was going to. If she said an hour, it'd likely be anywhere from fifteen to twenty minutes. She just liked to make people panic for no reason other than because she could. Taking a deep breath, and downing his last drink, he glanced towards the other two.

“Who's coming and who's hiding out?"

"I should probably show, I guess. I'm nominally in charge of the office and all."

"Why don't you guys do that, and I'll take care of the bill? Curious as I am, it'd probably be weird if I was there right off the bat, especially if we don't want to let on that you actually have normal shit like friends." Kas grimaced, reaching out and patting twice on the back. "Good luck out there."

Eryk actually forgot about that. He had friends and, as Kas put it, normal shit. He huffed lightly, though, and shook his head. “Thanks, and you'll meet her soon enough, I'm sure," Eryk replied as he stood from his spot. He bid Marna and Kas farewell before he left with Aidan. The walk to the docks was slow, but deliberately so. He wasn't in a rush to see her, nor hear her. The air strip wasn't too far from the docks, and when they arrived, he could already see the top of her annoying purple hair. Her expression was dark, and she seemed to be glaring at everyone who passed her by, however; when their eyes met, her expression changed into something more that looked like disgust.

That was fine by Eryk; she disgusted him, too.

He briefly glanced in Aidan's direction before turning his attention back towards Katia. He didn't say anything to her. He had nothing to say, after all.

“Klein, what are you doing here?" she asked, slightly confused. “It's supposed to be just him; Gregorovich hasn't given us anything specific," she added, tossing her head in Eryk's direction. It jostled her ponytail, but other than that, she looked like she always did. Dressed in a white tank top with a purple one over it, she placed a hand on her hip as she shifted the bag at her back. She handed it towards Eryk, though, and he gave her a flat stare.

“I'm not your fucking bell boy. Don't hand me your shit," he said as he narrowed his eyes. She narrowed her own at him.

Aidan shrugged, acting entirely like his usual self. "I'm technically in charge of the field office. Apparently that means doing shit like this; it's happened before." He didn't give any particular indication how he felt about it. He did, however, extend a hand as if to offer to carry the same suitcase Eryk had refused.

"You got a place you're set up or what?"

“I did," she replied dryly, glancing in Aidan's direction with narrowed eyes. It took her a moment longer before she handed the bag to Aidan, and huffed lightly. “But the place I was set up at decided they didn't have any open rooms so I'll be staying wherever Nero is staying," she stated in a nonchalant fashion. There was something in her eyes, a dangerous glint that was covered by a smile, however; Eryk knew it for what it wasn't.

“No. You're not staying with me. Go see if the Delaney has any open rooms for you to rent from," he shot back, earning an arched brow from her.

“Oh? Is there a reason you don't want me staying, Ryk? Niav not being a good girl and putting out like she's supposed to?" she asked. Eryk bit his tongue. He wanted to tell her to fuck off, but that wouldn't work for her. She'd merely roll with it and turn it into something else.

“I'm on a mission for Gregorovich. You'll be informed about it, later, not in a public place like this," he merely stated. It seemed to satisfy her for the moment, however; she made a soft tsking sound.

“What about you, Aidan? You've any room to spare?" she sounded almost hopeful that he would. Eryk inwardly winced. She was going to be a pain for the next few weeks, wasn't she?

Aidan sighed, flicking ash from the end of his cigarette. "Yeah, fine. You can stay at mine. I wasn't planning on this though, so you'll have to give me a few hours to change out the sheets and whatever." He shot a brief glance at Eryk. There was little change in his expression, but nevertheless it was pretty obvious why he was agreeing to this—it would stop Katia from insisting on anything less convenient, including staying with Cyrilla and Kas or anything like that.

"We gonna get moving? There's a car waiting in the lot. We can talk shop there."

I owe you one, Eryk spoke directly to Aidan with the use of his telepathy. He didn't want Katia to hear him, after all, and he would owe Aidan. It was still strange to Eryk, connecting to someone's mind like that, even if for a brief moment. He'd have to practice it at a later time with someone just so it wouldn't feel like he'd run straight into a wall, head first. It was different with pokemon, though.

Katia, however, beamed happily at Aidan when he'd agreed to let her stay. “See, why can't you be more accommodating like Klein?" she asked, furrowing her brows at Eryk as they made their way towards the car.

“Because I'm not Klein."

Clearly," she responded, rolling her eyes. When they approached the car, they shuffled in with Katia in the middle. “So... let's talk shop. What's Gregorovich having them do?" she asked once she made herself comfortable.

Stubbing his cigarette out on the ashtray in the car, Aidan expelled the last of the smoke out the window and leaned back, crossing his arms. "Infiltration, of sorts," he said. "Two at once. The long term one's for Project Nebula, so I don't have to tell you how much boss has riding on it. That's the one he's changed locations for—he's living with a mark. The other's a foray into pro-battling. Dunno what details you're cleared for, so I'll have to stop explaining there, but... you get the idea, I'm sure."

Katia looked like she wanted to sneer at what Aidan had said, but she seemed to settle on pursed lips. “Fine. I get the idea," she replied as she rolled her eyes. “Just so you know, I'll be checking in with Niav, too. There have been some unsettling things being said and her parents want me to check in with her while I'm here," she stated, grinning slightly.

“This is a mission that all three of us are doing. Don't do anything stupid, Katia, or it's not Gregorovich you'll be worried about," he let the threat hang in the air as she furrowed her brows at him.

“I'm not a complete monster, Ryk. I'm merely going to get her side of the story, is all. Jeez, I swear you jump to conclusions too quickly."

“How long are you going to be here?" he asked, watching as she smiled slyly at him.

“Why? Miss me already?"

“No. I want to celebrate when you go." Katia made a face at him but rolled her eyes.

“The first week of November, asshole."

Aidan looked like he'd rather be anywhere else, but only for a moment before his features smoothed out again. His chest rose and fell with a deep sigh, but it was entirely silent. He fixed his eyes out the window and pretended to ignore the insults being traded back and forth, at least until they reached the Cloyster.

"All right, this is our stop. You headed back to hers, Nero, or getting out?"

Eryk really didn't want to leave Aidan alone with Katia, however; he had promised Anastasia that he would help her with some of the duties before the day was out. Sighing deeply, he shook his head.

“I'm headed back. There are a few things I need to take care of," he answered, pursing his lips in Aidan's direction. Katia didn't seem too inclined to say anything about his response, thankfully. She merely rolled her eyes and leaned a little towards Aidan's direction.

“Guess that means you'll be showing me around the apartment," she said simply, though Eryk felt a little sick to his stomach at the way she said it. There were certain implications there that he was almost certain she meant. He really did owe Aidan. Badly for this.

But Aidan's expression didn't change. He only nodded, as disaffected and detached as he'd ever been, and pulled Katia's bag from the trunk. "Sure. We're this way."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


October 23rd
Cinnabar Island Gym - Afternoon - Light Rain
Melody Rheinallt


It was hardly the most spectacular day for a gym challenge, really, what with the overcast sky and intermittent drizzle. But that was all right—it was still the day she'd picked, the day she felt ready, and that was enough.

Brushing down her loose tank, Mel waited patiently outside of the gym. Apparently Drake was making up for some time off lately, so there'd actually been a small queue out the door this afternoon. She didn't really mind. She had an umbrella for when it started to rain, and the company of her little audience to make the wait go by faster. Eryk and Ana had shelter work to do today, unsurprisingly, but she'd been invited to Ana's house for dinner afterwards. For celebration, she'd said, though Mel didn't want to count her torchics before they hatched.

Kas was there, though, and Aidan had come along too, claiming he had nothing to do in the office right now anyway. Mel sort of suspected that he was using her as an excuse to get away from that woman named Katia that everyone had been talking about, but that was fine by her. She sounded like a really unpleasant sort of person.

Cyrilla was there as well, for the same reason as Aidan, perhaps, and Nev had tagged along, too. The latter of them said it was so that she could cheer on Mel, and the both of them were huddled under a feebas umbrella that Cyrilla had brought with her. Nev had, apparently, forgotten her own, but the both of them seemed to fit comfortably underneath.

“Are you excited for your match, Mel?" Nev asked curiously, glancing in her direction. “It looks like everyone who has challenged him so far has lost," she stated as a challenger exited the door, a seemingly disappointed look on their face. There were ten minute intervals between each match, perhaps so that Drake could rest his team before the next battle.

Mel grinned. "Sure am. I was kind of hoping to be first challenger this morning so I'd know his pokémon were completely fresh, but someone insisted he needed his beauty sleep." She jabbed her elbow into Kas's ribcage; he pretended it hurt, doubling over a little with a grimace on his face.

Aidan lifted an eyebrow. Unlike the others, he'd just worn a coat that seemed to be water-resistant. His hair was a little damp, though, and wasn't styled up the way it usually was, falling more naturally around his face and neck instead. Mel wasn't really into older guys, but she could acknowledge that he looked handsome like that regardless.

"I'd hate to see what he looks like without if this is with," he said sardonically.

"Hey," Mirmir protested, offering himself up to be butt of the joke as he often did. "I have it on good authority that I'm a very nice-looking fellow."

Well aware of the opportunity she was being presented here, Mel took him up on it. "Yeah. If by 'good authority' you mean your mother tells you so."

Aidan laughed softly. "Ah, so this is what it means when people say 'a face only a mother could love.'"

Cyrilla chuckled at their banter while Nev pursed her lips together. “That's not nice; Kas is a very nice-looking person," she stated, causing Cyrilla to roll her eyes a bit.

“They're poking fun of him, Nev. Of course Kas is a very nice-looking fellow," Cyrilla seemed to explain, making air quotes with her free hand. Nev made a silent 'oh', and huffed nervously. “Besides, it's not like Kas really needs his beauty sleep; can't say the same for poor Drake, there," she added, nodding her head in the direction of the door as Drake called the next challenger. He yawned slightly, mouth covered with his left hand as he glanced in their direction.

With a large smile on his face, he waved at them before turning back inside the gym with the next person. “If he's half as sleepy as he looks, and is still winning, you might be in for a good match, Mel," Nev stated, seemingly excited for it.

Mel grinned. That challenger going inside meant she was the next, and she could feel the excitement building. "Oh I knew that to begin with," she said with a little smile. "Both the upside and the downside of being personally acquainted with the guy, I guess."

"Hmm," Kas added, drawing out the humming sound as though newly-contemplative. "Personally acquainted, is it? Didn't know that's what the kids were calling it these days."

Mel didn't bother resisting the urge to roll her eyes. Like he didn't know what was going on. "That's what it's called when you've only just met and are trying to see what'll happen, yeah," she drawled. "You've at least heard of taking it slow, right Mirmir?"

He scratched his head, putting in an exaggerated expression of deep thought. "It might be ringing a bell, sure."

Cyrilla huffed lightly at the exchange, shaking her head a bit as Nev looked slightly confused. She merely shrugged it off, though, and smiled in Mel's direction. “Well I think it's pretty admirable that you're both taking it slow," she stated.

“Hm, I have to agree with her on this one. Most people just jump straight into something and end up falling out after a couple of weeks. If it doesn't work out between you and Drake, at least you'll have made a friend, if nothing else," Cyrilla stated with a small smile on her face. “But I think you and Drake might have what it takes. You're both very comfortable, already, and that's a good sign, I think," she added shrugging her shoulders.

“Just make sure you kick his ass, first," she grinned, then, referring to Mel's upcoming match. Nev chuckled lightly and shook her head.

“She's already going to kick his ass, Cyrilla," Nev said as she grinned. “Oh, you should see if he wants to come over for your celebratory dinner, Mel! If he's finished with challenges, that is."

Mel had to laugh a little. "There's something a little ironic about inviting him to a celebration of victory against him, but I'll see if I can swing it." She knew she was definitely audacious enough to do something like that, and didn't think it would offend him. Even if she won, it wouldn't be like she was defeating him full-stop or anything—it was a Gym Leader's job to provide a very specific level of challenge, not to go all-out with their best pokémon or whatever. So it shouldn't be an insult or anything she didn't think.

Besides, teasing aside, she really did like him, as a person. He was goofy in a disarming way, and warm and sweet. In other words, pretty much the antithesis of every bad dating experience she'd ever had, and some of them were—

Well, better not to think about that now. She'd gotten used to the thoughts intruding sometimes. It was what they did. But the comfort of this moment was a strong defense against them, and she let herself relax into it a little. Whether it turned into anything more or not, she'd made a friend that could do that for her even when he wasn't around, and that was itself something rare and worth cherishing.

“Well... you don't have to tell him it's a celebratory dinner if that's the case. You can just say it's a dinner with friends," Nev stated, still grinning. Cyrilla shook her head and rolled her eyes.

“It's a celebratory dinner, Nev. No way around that one... and besides, it's not like he'll say no if Mel asks nicely. Oh, look, there's your chance, Mel," Cyrilla stated as she nodded her head in the direction of the door where Drake appeared. He grinned in their direction and motioned them towards the gym doors.

“Hey guys!" he greeted, smiling brightly at all of them. “I'm a little jealous. I don't have a cheering squad for me," he stated, his lips forming into a mock pout.

“Yeah, well, you're not as cute as Mel, so... you'll just have to suck it up," Cyrilla stated as she grinned at him, earning a light chuckle from Drake.

“I guess you're right on that one," he said lightly before leading them inside the gym.

"You hear that guys? He thinks I'm cute." Mel grinned, something that turned into a chuckle when Aidan rolled his eyes in an exaggerated fashion. She happily followed Drake inside, the others trailing after. She waited until they'd broken away to head for the spectator seats before she broached the topic further, though.

"Hey, Drake? Before we get started—are you free around dinner time? Everyone's getting together at Ana and Ryk's place for dinner. I thought maybe you'd want to come?"

Intellectually, she knew the nervous flutter in her stomach was needless; it wasn't as though she were actually asking him out. Hell, she'd done that, kind of, already, though apparently he'd not noticed that was her intention. But still she found herself unsure of his answer, and hoping it would be the affirmative one, so emotionally there wasn't much of a difference.

“Hm," he seemed to be contemplating her offer, pursing his lips together and regarded her with a serious gaze. A goofy grin spread over his face, though, as he nodded his head. “Of course I'd like to go! After you, there's at least three more challengers so by the time I'm done with them, it'll be dinner time, right?" he stated, tilting his head to the side a bit.

“I'll be there, for sure," he added as he smiled at her. He cleared his throat, though, and took a step back. “Alright, just to reiterate old rules and what not," be began in a nonchalant fashion, making his way towards the center of the gym. “We're using only five pokemon in total. Your objective is to defeat me in anyway you can, and you are allowed to switch out during the match, however," he paused to clear his throat, “you are only allowed to use the same five. In other words, if you send out a new pokemon that wasn't part of the original five, then you'll be disqualified, alright?"

“Any questions or concerns before we begin?"

She grinned, then shook her head. "None whatsoever. Come at me, leaderman." Mel reached for her belt, pinching off the first of her five chosen battle partners for the day, but held off, curious to see who Drake would send out first and willing to change her strategy if the choice was different than she expected.

Drake chuckled lightly at the name before he tossed his first pokemon out. “Alright, Axe, time to play again," he stated as his fraxure appeared. He growled lightly before tilting his head in Mel's direction. Axe let out a bellowing roar as he seemed to prepare himself for the battle.

Mel decided that her instinct was as good as any, and gave the pokéball a toss. Shaolin, her meinshao, emerged, looking ready as ever for a spar and dropping into a fighting stance immediately.

As soon as he match was signalled to begin, Mel called for Shaolin to use calm mind, then force palm immediately after. The pokémon bounded towards Axe, whipping forward the lashes of fur at the end of one arm to strike.

“Use Crunch!" Drake commanded. Axe roared before charging Shaolin, the area around his mouth glowing in the process.

The two moves collided; Axe's jaws clamped down around Shaolin's fur, but the move wasn't effective, and she just used it to yank him in to hit with her other arm regardless. They broke apart, then charged back in. Both pokémon were high-attack close-quarters battlers, but Shaolin had an edge, and in the end, she pulled out the victory.

Mel withdrew her as soon as the battle was over, sending Una out instead. She had a tough fight against Brick Jr., but the Gabite emerged the victor, only to be felled by Gemma's powerful Ice Beam. It was a battle of water types after that; an odd thing in a dragon-type gym, but gyarados was close enough, she supposed. Gemma scraped by with a psybeam, but was in no shape to continue, so Mel withdrew her as well.

Ptrouble defeated Deino, but ran into a bigger issue against Drake's salamence, very clearly his anchor pokémon. Fortunately, Mel had an ace in the hole for this particular gym, and withdrew her aerodactyl in favor of sending out Argent. Grinning, she folded her arms across her chest. "Attract."

“Aw, c'mon!" Drake stated as he threw an arm out in a vague gesture. “I forgot that move existed," he muttered before shaking his head. “Typhoon, use Dragon Tail," he said as the Salamence merely regarded Argent. He didn't move, and instead, seemed to lay down, and stretched out his neck. He made a soft grumbling noise in Argent's direction, causing Drake to shake his head.

“You're a big baby, you know that?" he stated in the Salamence's direction. Sighing deeply, he shook his head and made his way out towards the floor, resting a hand on Typhoon's wing. “You lost, ya big dope," he spoke gently, but seemed amused more than anything. “Guess that means you're my first challenger today to win the Volcano Badge," he stated, fishing around in his breast pocket and pulling a tin can from it. He popped it open and pulled what looked to be the said badge from it, and motioned for Mel to meet him halfway to the center.

“Congrats, Mel. A battle well won... or something like that." He chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck.

Mel laughed softly as she hopped down, more than happy to meet him in the middle and accept her badge. Argent, always both good sport and incorrigible tease, nuzzled her little nose against the very end of Typhoon's in an almost conciliatory gesture. Typhoon seemed mostly pleased by this, and released a short huff of air.

"'Something like that'?" Mel replied, perhaps not so dissimilar from her pokémon in this respect. "It's a perfectly legitimate move, I'll have you know." She winked as she retrieved her badge case, not so different from the one he had—her aluminum shell was decorated with a tropical flower pattern in teal and green. She set the Volcano Badge in the seventh spot; there was only one missing from the set now.

Drake snorted softly before he chuckled. “Yeah, yeah, I know it is. Just didn't think it'd ever be used in a gym battle, is all," he stated, rolling his eyes seemingly at himself. “Ah, but still, that was a good battle. Best one I've had all day, really," he continued, before rubbing at Typhoon's wing. The Salamence shook it, though, as if to shake Drake's hand off, before nudging closer to Argent.

“I don't think it's going to wear off anytime soon, either." Drake shook his head and glanced towards the others on the spectator seats who seemed to be laughing at him. Nev and Cyrilla were, at least. Mirmir was grinning, and Aidan shook his head a little.

“So... what time should I be there for dinner? Seven, eight?"

"Seven thirty if you can swing it. You've got my number if you can't." She dropped the little reminder with half a grin before recalling Argent. "Anyway, we should get going; you'll need to rest before the next challenge and all. Good luck, leaderman."

Typhoon seemed almost saddened by the sylveon's disappearance, but Drake recalled him before he could make a spectacle of himself. “Alright, seven thirty. I'll be there, you can count on it," he replied with a large grin of his own.

“Yeah, well, you better since you're making a promise, Drake," Cyrilla stated as she stood a little to Mel's left, arm linked with Nev's. “You don't want me coming after you, if you break it," she added, the grin on her face belying the fact that she was being serious, it seemed.

“I'll be there, I promise," Drake stated, lips pursed into a fine line, but he didn't seem upset or anything.

“Good. Come on, Mel, let's go tell the other two about your victory! And see if they need any help with dinner," Nev stated, offering her free arm towards her.

She took it, shooting Drake a parting smile over her shoulder and waving with her other hand as the group exited the gym.

All in all, she'd had a pretty fantastic day.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Anastasia Asher
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



October 30th
Cinnabar Mansion - Evening - Drizzle
Nevena Solomon


Nev was excited.

They'd spent a majority of the afternoon decorating the mansion for tonight's festivities. It was her birthday tomorrow, but it was also the day that the others would be doing something else. Not to mention it was also Halloween, tomorrow. After Mel's victory, they'd all agreed to celebrate Nev's birthday the day before. It was endearing to Nevena because she'd never had anyone to spend her birthdays with. She always spent them alone, at home, with her pokemon, or occasionally at the movie theatre if something interesting was out.

This one, though... she was going to cherish it.

Nevena was currently in the mansion's locker room with Ana, Mel, and Cy. Cyrilla had found a costume for Nev to wear for the party tonight, but she felt a little exposed. The black dress was cut into a very deep v-neck, and fell just slightly below her shoulder blades. The dress itself was a little smooth and formfitting, with the bottom portion of the dress cut into a sheer black material. It barely fell past her knees. She'd never worn something this revealing before, and she felt slightly uncomfortable in it.

But as Cyrilla had said, she'd only be wearing it once, and it was nice. The sheer gloves that accompanied it felt like silk, and went to her elbows. The black ribbon stilettos she'd worn to complete the outfit were still a little strange to her. She was used to wearing heels, but the heels were just a little bit different than what she was used to.

“Oh, how does it look?" she asked the others once she'd stepped out. She fiddled with the belt around her waist as she glanced towards the other three women.

"Get it girl," Mel said, feigning an exaggerated once-over with a little grin. "That's sexy as hell." She said it with just enough lightness in her voice that it was clearly meant to be a genuine compliment, rather than to make Nev feel awkward or anything. Mel herself was dressed in an ancient style, with gold colored costume jewelry, exaggerated eyeliner, and enough bandage on the visible parts of her body to make the mummy part obvious. She was actually quite strategic about it—the bandage was shredded and dangled from around her wrists, elbows, and neck, while the diaphanous gown was neither revealing nor excessively modest.

"You look really nice," Ana agreed, tying her obi. She'd used temporary dye to darken her pink hair to black, painting her lips a blueish grey shade that made her look frostbitten, which along with the white kimono and obi, gave her away for a yuki-onna. With the natural delicacy of her features and small size of her frame, there really was something ghostly about her.

“Oh, but the two of you look really gorgeous!" Nev couldn't help herself, and felt her cheeks heat slightly. Mel and Ana looked really good in their outfits of choice, and she couldn't help the smile that spread across her face. She blinked, though, when Cyrilla rounded the corner, and whistled in Nev's direction.

“And here I thought the dress was a little too small. It fits you really well, Nev. You look drop-dead gorgeous," Cyrilla stated as she grinned in Nev's direction. She'd dressed as the Bride of Frankenstein, it looked like. The dress itself was sleeveless and more modest than most things Cyrilla had worn, before. She had cloth that looked like ribbons, tied to her wrist and traveled up her bicep. There was a thin white belt that was tied around her waist, and like Ana, seemed to have temporarily dyed parts of her hair black. It seemed more like highlights since it was pulled back into a loose tail.

Her lips were painted black with a small amount of black eyeliner, nothing too exaggerated like Mel's.

“Thank you, Cyrilla. You all look really lovely. It's almost hard to believe you're actual people," she stated, causing Cyrilla to chuckle lightly.

“Hm, well, yes, now let's go see how the boys did," she stated as she winked in Nev's direction before sharing a grin with Mel.

Mel waggled her eyebrows in a way rather like her brother, and the group of them exited the locker room.

The ground floor of the mansion, with its enormous ballroom, had been transformed into the main party space, with long tables of food and several hired caterers set up at a bar to serve drinks of all kinds. A lot of the office's employees and their guests were present, man dressed in costume according to the theme, which was 'classic horror.' Sydney, dressed as a possessed nun, was in the middle of conversation with Luke, whose dark skin and black clothes were painted white with a rather accurate skeletal depiction, and Niko, who was dressed as... a nurse?

There were a lot of sheet ghosts, and a few people not really dressed up, but for the most part everyone was participating.

"Hey guys!" Kas was the first to approach them, speaking a little more loudly than usual over the music. He already had a plate of snacks, and was dressed as Frankenstein's monster, with some rather good stitching effects on his face, neck, and arms, as well as tattered pants, a shirt with the sleeves rolled, and suspenders. "Looks like you went all-out, huh?"

“Only the best for Nevena," Cyrilla responded as Nev smiled.

“You look really nice, Kas," Nev stated as she glanced around the area. She could see Lorraine talking with Hayley, the former dressed in a practical labcoat, however; it looked more like a tattered labcoat dress. Was she supposed to be a mad scientist? Hayley, however, looked to be dressed in what appeared to be a pink fairy costume, or maybe something similar to what a sylveon outfit would look like.

"Nice is a weird word for this," Kas replied with some amusement. It was indeed a rather monstrous look, all things considered, as though his body were pieced together with large, crude stitches.

“Hey, it's the birthday girl and her entourage," another voice chimed in, belonging to Drake. He made his way towards them, holding out a drink in Mel's direction. It looked benign, fruit punch, maybe. He was dressed in a red flannel that was torn near the elbows and wrist areas. There looked to be fur sprouting out of the torn areas, especially near the torn parts of his blue jeans. He even had some fur taped to his jaws, and his nose was painted black.

There was a tail sticking out behind him, almost in the shape of what a midnight lycanroc's tail looked like. Maybe he was supposed to be the lycanroc-man?

"Ohhh, thank you," Mel said, accepting the drink and easily making room for him in the circle. She laughed softly at the extra 'fur' on his jaw. "Should I scratch you under the chin for being a good boy?" she drawled, struggling to maintain a straight face.

Kas snorted. "Get a room."

“Hm, you'd like that wouldn't you," Cyrilla stated, rolling her eyes a bit. Drake seemed to almost sputter in his drink, though, his face coloring slightly.

“Uh, no, you don't have to do that, Mel," he responded with a light shake of his head. Nev thought it was adorable, though, the way he seemed nervous about it. “Oh, I also didn't know what to get you for your birthday, Nev, but I've left it on the table over there," Drake stated as he pointed to a small table. Nev blinked in relative surprise.

“Oh, that's very sweet of you, but you didn't have to get me anything," she replied as she glanced at the table. There were at least three other gifts there, probably from some of the others. It wasn't required, though. Nev didn't invite people with the intention of receiving gifts from them. She wanted them to have a good time; that was all she wanted for them.

“Well, too late. We all kind of got you something... I think. Ryk and I got you something so ours is a combined gift," Cyrilla stated with a grin, before shaking her head. “Speaking of the doofus, is he still having trouble putting his outfit together?" she asked in Kas's direction. “Last I heard he was with you and Aidan."

"Yeah they're both still in the locker room. I did Ryk's special effects, but he and boss have kind of complicated costumes." He shrugged, glancing at the table as Ana added her gift to the bunch. There was already one there that seemed to be from both himself and Mel. "Shouldn't take them too much longer, though."

Cyrilla huffed lightly and shook her head. “I didn't think it'd be that complicated. He's mostly got the right structure already for it," she stated, shrugging her shoulders. “I'm going to go see if Noct and the others have everything set up for tonight's haunted house events, so don't party too much without me," she stated, waving her hand in front of her in a nonchalant fashion.

“Oh, do you want me to come with?" Nev asked as Cyrilla shook her head.

“You stay here and wait for the others. It won't take me too long, I promise," she replied as Nevena pursed her lips together.

“Alright, if you say so." It wasn't much longer when Eryk appeared, and Nev could see why Kas had said what he did about the costume being complicated. The areas where his facial scars usually were, were covered by what looked like open sores and wounds. He was wearing yellow contacts, too, to give the much added affect for a zombie-like appearance. The black shirt he'd worn, long-sleeved, was torn in random places, and the black pants he had on were torn as well. There were red bandages around his arm as well, and what looked like a bite mark on his neck.

“Oh, that looks amazing, Eryk." Nev stated, eyes wide in awe. Everyone so far had really good costumes. Eryk blinked slowly in her direction, though, and tilted his head.

“As do the rest of you," he spoke, his eyes lingering a bit in Ana's direction.

"Okay so we've got a bunch of undead, a witch, a couple of mad creations, a wolfman... now I want to know what Aidan is," Mel said, casting her eyes around as if to spot him.

"Already regretting this," answered the man himself, appearing behind Nev. He was smoking, but from a pipe this time, which went with the long, heavy trenchcoat, vest, and wide-brimmed hat of his costume. There was a prop crossbow slung over his back, even—or was that real? It was hard to tell.

"Van Helsing!" Ana declared, seemingly impressed.

Aidan nodded slightly, doffing the hat in a wry manner. "For all your vampire-slaying needs." He tilted his jaw, subtly gesturing across the room.

For a second, Nev didn't follow his gesture. She stared at him, instead, and blinked slowly. “Oh, wow," she stated before she could filter her thoughts properly. “You look really good in that, Aidan," she continued, earning a light snicker from Drake. She blinked a few more times before her eyes widened. “Oh, I didn't mean to say that out loud!" she coughed lightly and finally glanced in the direction he'd gestured.

She could see the young woman named Katia in the distance. Indeed, she seemed to be dressed as one of the old brides of Dracula. The dress was as deeply v-cut as Nev's was, however; it was longer and trailed down the floor. The color was almost a gradient white to pink, and the underbust she wore with it emphasized certain parts of her body. She really could have passed for a bride of Dracula if they'd actually existed.

Eryk, however, seemed to be furrowing his brows in Katia's direction, and seemed rather tense. From what she'd been able to tell, he didn't particularly get along with Katia. Nev couldn't blame him, really. The woman even gave Nev bad vibes... and Nev usually liked every person she met. There were nights when even Aidan stayed at Nevena's place on the couch since Katia took up his living space. She didn't mind it, honestly. She was glad to help him out when he needed a place to escape.

“There just seems to be one vampire you can't slay, Van Helsing," Eryk stated in what appeared to be dry humor. Drake huffed lightly, though.

"Don't count me out yet," he murmured. He seemed to be only half-invested in the conversation, though, and his eyes dropped to the floor near Nev for a moment before he seemingly inhaled wrong and coughed, withdrawing the pipe even as Ana shifted around to rub his back.

"Are you all right?"

He cleared his throat once more, then nodded. There was a faint redness to his face, likely from the coughing. "Yeah," he said, flicking a glance a Nev before looking back at Ana again. "Fine, thanks."

Kas's eyes narrowed like he was trying to figure something out, but in the end he just went back to snacking. "Does the haunted entertainment part of this start soon? I'm kind of surprised Katia's not the boss monster for that."

Mel laughed, but the words seemed to remind Ana of something, and she withdrew her pokéballs from her obi and released both Luna and Nova. "They're helping Cyrilla," she explained, seeing both of them off with a wave.

"So's Rex," Aidan noted, replacing the hat on his head. "I'm sure he's having the time of his life."

“If he's anything like Imp, then I concur. He's helping out as well," Eryk muttered, as Nev chuckled lightly. “I think she'd send someone back once all the preparations are done... and don't count Katia out, yet, Kas. She just might make an appearance as one at the end of the entertaiment. She likes to ruin everyone's fun."

“It's so strange that the two of you are from the same family. You and her share no similarities at all," Nev stated as she blinked in Eryk's direction. He gave her a flat look, though, and shrugged.

“We're of the same family, but we're not related," he seemed to explain. Nev made a slight 'oh' before she glanced towards the others, making an effort not to look at Aidan for longer than necessary. She didn't really need to embarrass herself any further, after all.

“Hey, isn't that Cy's lycanroc, Diva?" Drake stated as the said lycanroc made her way through the crowd. She growled lightly at Drake for some reason before going up to Nev, and grabbing at her hand. Nev chuckled lightly as she let the lycanroc take her hand, however; Eryk rolled his eyes.

“I think the preparations are done," he stated as if to explain Diva's appearance. The lycanroc huffed as if she were agreeing with him, though.

“Oh, let's go, then! I'm excited to see what they've done!" Nev stated as she allowed Diva to lead the way.

The others followed behind, eventually exiting the relatively tame ballroom into the foyer, which at the moment looked old, decrepit, and dark, the sole source of light a dim lantern hung near the stairs. Probably a few of the pokémon who could cast illusions were responsible for that. It had a lonely, desolate sort of air to it; Luke was presently standing at the bottom of the staircase.

“Sorry, guys," he said, grinning slightly. “I've been instructed to allow only one or two people in at a time. Big groups kind of ruin the ambiance and the scares. So who's first?"

"Nev should go since it's her birthday," Ana said, smiling. In the dim light, the bright white of her kimono almost made her glow.

Nev pursed her lips together as she frowned. “Oh, but maybe someone should go first?" she stated as she turned towards the group. Eryk arched a brow in her direction, though, in a curious fashion.

“Do haunted houses frighten you?" he asked, causing Nev's frown to deepen.

“Oh, if that's the case, I'll go with you!" Drake stated taking a step forward before Cyrilla appeared at the top of the staircase, and making a slight tsking sound.

“Sorry, love, but you're accompanying Mel through," she stated as she descended the stairs. Once she was out, she placed a hand on her hip and arched a brow at the group. “Since we have an even number of people here, you are all going in with pairs."

“And how are you deciding these pairs, Cy?" Eryk asked as he narrowed his eyes suspiciously at her. She grinned at him.

“Easy. Everyone whose costumes are the closest to each other are getting paired. Unfortunately that means I'm going with Frankenstein, here," she stated, jabbing a finger in Kas's direction, though she didn't seem upset or anything. “You and Ana are going together, Ryk, which leaves Van Helsing and the Witch," she finished with a small grin on her face.

“Oh, but that seems a little unfair, doesn't it? Maybe we should just draw sticks?" Nev tried to suggest. It wasn't that she didn't want to go with Aidan. She'd be more than happy to, but... well, she wasn't entirely sure why she was trying to talk herself out of it.

"If it bothers you that much, I'll switch with someone," Aidan said, his brows knit. It was hard to read the expression on his face, but he didn't look happy, to be sure. He shifted his eyes away from her, though, studying a fixed point on the wall like it no longer concerned him.

For some reason, Nev felt her face heat up, even the tips of her ears. Her eyes widened slightly as she shook her head. “No, oh, that's not what I meant," she stated a little panicked. Had she said something that bothered him? She swallowed thickly and pursed her lips together. “I just thought that... well..." she wasn't sure how to explain what she'd thought would be a little more fair to the others.

“I honestly don't mind if I go with you, Aidan," she murmured softly, dropping her gaze to the floor for a moment.

“How about this; since it's obvious that Mel and Drake should go together, how about they go first? Then, once they go, we can decide who goes with who the second round?" Cyrilla seemed to suggest, but Nev shook her head.

“No, it's fine, Cyrilla. I want to go with Aidan. I think... well, I think it'd be nice to see if it's anything like the Haunted House level in the game we're playing," she stated, as Cyrilla made a slight 'aw'. Eryk rolled his eyes, though.

Aidan huffed softly, his expression much more like its usual neutrality than the slight edge of displeasure it had taken on before. "I'll take notes while you're jumping, shall I?" he drawled, but he did extend an elbow in such a way as to clearly be offering his arm to loop hers through, if she so desired.

Cyrilla snickered softly as she shook her head. Nev, however, pursed her lips at Aidan, and looped her arm with his. “I'm not that easily startled, I'll have you know," she stated as they walked up the stairs. She knew that she was, though, and gripped his arm just a bit tighter. She could play the game easily enough, but being in an actual haunted house was a lot different than playing through one on a game.

“Have fun you two!" Cyrilla called out as they entered through the door. It wasn't much, at first. There was eerie music playing but nothing too unexpected. The hall they were in was decorated with what looked to be galvantual and ariados webs. There was electricity flowing through some of the webs, after all. Nev subconsciously shivered. She had nothing against the pokémon, but webs were another thing altogether.

“So far, nothing like the game," she muttered softly, turning her attention towards Aidan.

"Yeah it's missing some—" he was cut off as a ghastly shriek sliced across all sound, even as a ghost seemed to appear from the wall to the left, wailing miserably and disappearing again through the wall to the right, as if it hadn't quite noticed them. Aidan blinked, but the expression on his face didn't change much.

From beyond, they could make out a soft sobbing sound, further down the hallway.

“I take it back!" she stated as she clutched a little tighter to Aidan's arm. She hadn't meant to step closer to him, but when the ghost had appeared from the wall, it was all she could do from nearly jumping out of her skin. Why did she agree to do this? She felt something slide down her back, the touch gentle enough that it sent a shiver down her back.

“Make it stop, make it stop," she repeated as she tensed. The touch faded, though, not long after, but Nev was still tense. “Oh, why did I agree to this?" she voiced out loud as she clung to Aidan's arm.

Aidan managed not to laugh at her, though there was a little amusement flickering in his eyes nonetheless. Still, he squeezed her arm in a reassuring manner and waited patiently until her immediate panic had subsided before doing anything else. "We don't have to do this, you know," he said simply. "There's an exit over this way; we can skip the whole thing and go back to the ballroom if you prefer. I'm not going to be disappointed or anything."

She wanted to say yes, to leave this haunted house behind, but her pride demanded she stay. So, she pursed her lips together and shook her head. “Not after everyone's hard work was put into this. I can't just leave halfway through; it wouldn't be... right." She took a deep breath to try and relax her nerves, however; something like cold breath ghosted over her neck.

“Okay, pride be damned. Let's go."

Aidan actually smiled a little. "Right this way, then." He selected one of the hallway's doors. Normally it led out into the back stairwell—and apparently it still did. The dim emergency track lights that were always on for safety were still there, and apparently this part of the building had been left alone. Aidan took them out the rear exit, then doubled back slightly so they could re-enter the ballroom. The others, of course, were still going through the haunted house.

Grabbing a drink off the bar table, Aidan steered them back to where their things had all been piled, setting the drink down in front of her and removing his crossbow to prop against one of the other chairs. "Have a seat, Doc. When you're all settled, I have something for you."

Nev blinked in his direction and tilted her head a bit. “You have something for me?" she stated. “Oh, but... you didn't have to, really," she continued as she glanced down towards the drink, and grabbed it with both of her hands. She didn't immediately take a drink of it, though, and tried to fight down the blush that was threatening to form on her face. She had really sweet and thoughtful friends. They didn't need to get her anything, and yet they still did. She smiled softly at the thought.

“But, um, thank you. For the drink and... whatever it is you have for me."

He snored softly, taking a smallish box out from beneath his chair and pushing it across the table towards her. "Don't thank me yet. It's nothing all that important. Just a little project."

The box was about shoe-sized, wrapped in neat, rainbow pastel paper and tied with a silver ribbon. 'To Doc' was written in Aidan's surprisingly-neat penmanship just under the bow.

Nev smiled as she pulled the box towards her, feeling a strange warmth in her chest as she glanced at it. Some part of her wondered if he'd ever use her name, or shortened version of it, but she was fine if he called her Doc. For now. She was a little startled at the thought before she shook it from her mind. Instead, she focused on the box and untied the ribbon, removing it before opening the present. She blinked a little stupidly at what was inside, and delicately, she retrieved the controller from the box.

“Oh... you," she began as she glanced back towards Aidan. She smiled brightly at him before turning her attention back towards the controller. It was pink in color, but that wasn't what caught her attention the most. Despite it being her favorite color, the controller itself was designed in a theme she recognized. On the left side was a small, chibi image of Balthazar, and on the right side, was an image of Maribelle.

“It's the... thank you, Aidan. This is... it's," she didn't know what to say, exactly. “I didn't know they made custom controllers for it," she stated, turning her attention back towards him.

"Uh." Aidan looked oddly unsure of himself for a moment, then grimaced. "They don't, exactly. Well, they do, but most of them aren't that good. I couldn't find one I thought you'd like, so I did the finish and the grip stuff myself. It's a little amateur, but if you didn't notice the mistakes, I'll take it." He gave her a wry half-smile at that.

Nev blinked incredulously at Aidan. “You... did this?" she stated in slight disbelief. Amateur or not, it was done really well. “It's really good, Aidan. I would have thought this was done professionally, if you hadn't told me that. You're very talented," she said truthfully. She was going to have to find out when his birthday was so she could get him something just as nice. Just as thoughtful.

“I really love it, thank you." She would have to put it to good use. “I'm almost tempted to just go try it out, now, but..." they couldn't exactly leave her birthday party. It would be rude, she thought.

He sat back in his chair, adjusting the hat so it would not impede his vision. "It's also the office Halloween party," he pointed out, almost as if reading her thoughts. "It'd go on without us just fine if you wanted to go." The smile tugging at his mouth was more genuine this time. "Entirely up to you though."

He did have a point.

“Alright. Plus, it'd be nice to finally get out of this dress," she stated as she grinned at Aidan. Her apartment was next to his and she could easily change beforehand. “Thanks again, Aidan." This had to be one of the best birthday's she'd had in a long time.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


October 31st
Lapras Hotel Conference Room - Morning - Rain
Kasimir Rheinallt


Kas pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose; since they were on pro-battling business today, the three of them were dressed accordingly, which meant he was in full nerd-chic. Fortunately he had plenty of wardrobe items that would do fine for the purpose. Today he wore a thin dark green sweater over a shirt and tie, with a blazer over that, on the rationale that he really should look nice for this kind of meeting. They did actually have to make a good impression on the promoter, after all, even if they'd already signed the contracts.

He was sure the other two were right behind him, but even so he paused at the door to make sure they caught up before he knocked or anything.

Ryk was the first to catch up, his strides just a bit longer than Cyrilla's. She was the shortest member of the group, after all. He was wearing something similar to what he'd worn during the tournament sans the longcoat, though. The dress shirt was still black in color, and long-sleeved, however; his slacks were an ash grey color, and the tie that he'd worn was a bright orange. It complimented his coloration, but the orange was slightly loud, even for Ryk. His hair had been left loose, however; there was what appeared to be braviary feathers tied in, somehow.

Cyrilla wasn't too far behind, coming up behind Ryk dressed in a pale lilac blouse with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. The skirt she was wearing was a high-waisted sheath pencil skirt and black in color. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, with a single hair pin stuck into it.

“If only I were a few inches taller, I wouldn't fall behind the both of you so often," she grumbled as she smoothed out her skirt. Ryk rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“You're not that much shorter, Cy. Let's get this over with, though," Ryk said with a heavy sigh.

With a little shrug, Kas knocked on the door, then opened it, stepping inside and holding it for the others to follow.

Inside the room was a conference style table, not quite as fancy as the one at the office but plenty fancy nonetheless. Sitting at it was a heavyset middle aged man in an impeccable suit, with a neatly-trimmed goatee and a watch that was clearly expensive but stopped short of ostentatious. The man knew how to present himself, at least. But then Kas hadn't thought that Aidan would steer them towards a slimeball, and if anyone could spot one from distance, it was probably the so-called human lie detector.

The man stood politely as they entered, accepting some documents from the also middle aged woman standing slightly behind him—probably his secretary or assistant, just from positioning. He set these on the table, then stepped out from his seat.

“Mr. Nero, Mr. Rheinallt, please come in. Good to see you again as well, Ms. Niav." He offered each of them a firm handshake, then gestured to the seats in invitation. “I'm Antonio Geiger; this is my assistant, Natalie Dupont. You were both quite something at that tournament the other week, if I may venture to say so."

Eryk remained quiet for a moment before he inclined his head in Geiger's direction. “Thank you," he stated, brows furrowing lightly as he tilted his head a bit. “It's been awhile since I've been able to do something like that." His expression smoothed out a bit after that. His attention was still fixed on Geiger, though it wasn't harsh.

The group took their seats, and Geiger resumed his own as well, scooting his chair in a little closer to the table. “It's easy enough to tell that you fellows enjoyed yourselves out there, and I think you've got what it takes to do well in the regular season." He nodded, almost as if to himself, then expelled a breath. "Of course, setting up a sponsorship involves a lot more than just that, unfortunately. The sponsors are invariably corporations, and there are all kinds of complications that go with that. Most of the time, they want trainers who are going to succeed, but also ones who fit their image."

Kas supposed that made sense. If you were throwing money at someone, you wanted them to reflect you well and all that. "And you're the matchmaker, right?"

Geiger snorted at the phrase, smiling a little wryly. “That's definitely one way to put it. I suppose the questions I ask aren't too different, either. Which brings me to the point of this meeting: I'm happy to represent you both, but I need to know more about you to do it effectively. Having an understanding of who you are will allow me to better arrange a sponsorship for you. So if you don't mind sharing, I'd like to start with the basics. Just tell me a little bit about yourselves: where you're from, what you do when you're not training or competing, what your lifestyle's like... that kind of thing."

Eryk pursed his lips together, and glanced in Cyrilla's direction. She merely smiled at him and nodded her head slightly. “I'm originally from Fuchsia City," Eryk began, taking in a deep breath. “Or my family originates from there," he seemed to correct himself. It was true either way he'd said it, though. “Most of my time is spent at the local hospice shelter where I volunteer. It's what I do most days when I'm not training."

“I work at the NTR office located here when I'm not doing either of those things," he leaned back a bit in his chair after he'd spoken.

Geiger raised his eyebrows a bit; it was sort of hard to tell whether this was because of the sparseness of the answer or because it contained a reference to NTR. He glanced to Kas next though, so in either case he'd clearly elected not to comment.

"I'm from Tangelo Island on the Orange Archipelago," he sad with half a smile. "My mom's a chef and my dad's a dojo master. I did the traditional journey thing for a while, but ultimately was too lazy to make a real shot at the league, which I kind of regret sometimes." Lifting his shoulders in a little shrug, he continued. "I've got two sisters, and my family's always been pretty supportive. I never went to college—didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life. I'm in IT now though. Self-taught programmer and general problem-fixer."

Nodding along with the explanation, Geiger glanced once at Natalie, who was diligently taking notes on a tablet. “Are you good at it? Programming, I mean."

Kas let himself grin. "My employer seems to think so."

“Do you use any of the skills the rest of your life has given you in battling?"

Kas thought about it for a bit. "Well I spar with my pokémon sometimes. I have to admit I'm a pretty rational rather than emotional thinker, so I guess that shows up in both my work and battling, but it's not like I think it's numbers alone or anything. The extra element to it is why battling's more challenging than anything I could do on a screen. It takes..." He paused, then shrugged. "Heart, I guess. And that's something that's not just off-the-cuff easy for me in the same way some other things can be."

Geiger kept nodding, clearly approving of what he was hearing. “Good, good. There's angles we can work with in there. Just need a couple quick talking points—you know your IQ?"

Kas shrugged. "I think it's around 180. Haven't taken a test in a while."

The promoter's eyes widened. “Almost doesn't matter, at that point," he murmured, then nodded again. “Okay, your angles are obvious. Now let's see..." He returned his attention to Ryk, a thoughtful frown on his face. “No offense, Mr. Nero, but you don't look like the caretaking type. That's not necessarily a bad thing, for present purposes. How'd you end up with a job like that?"

Ryk huffed slightly at Geiger's comment. “I get that a lot," he muttered before his shoulders slumped a bit. He fixed Geiger with a gaze, though, before he answered: “I'm not exactly a sociable person, but helping others has always been... second nature. It's easier when it's helping pokémon, though."

“A bit of a dark caretaker, if you will," Cyrilla added with a light smile on her face. Eryk looked like he wanted to roll his eyes but refrained.

“I ended up with the job when I ran into the owner of the shelter. I helped her carry a bag of feed and bedding to her place where I learned of the shelter. I've volunteered there ever since," Eryk stated as he folded his arms.

“I'm also renting a room there to make it easier to help out."

“NTR by day, lowkey good samaritan by night. That's something else." Geiger shook his head and smiled a little, apparently genuinely chuffed by the information. “What's the work like? Difficult? Rewarding? Both?"

He had something of a knack for interviewing, Kas would admit. It wasn't anyone who could draw much out of Ryk, especially as a stranger. He was kind of interested in the answers himself.

Eryk seemed to contemplate the question. His brows furrowed lightly as he pursed his lips together. “It's more rewarding than it is difficult," he finally answered. Taking in a deep breath, he exhaled slowly as if he were trying to find a way to properly explain what he meant.

“Some of the occupants there will never be able to be adopted out, nor will they live very long lives. Being there to help them along in any capacity makes it feel as if I've accomplished something," he shrugged lightly, “and if I accomplish anything, it's... a relief that it can be something like that." Eryk fell silent for a moment after that.

“This opportunity, however, is giving me a chance at something I've wanted to do when I was younger. Unlike Kasimir, I wasn't able to partake in a traditional journey, but it was something I had entertained the idea of. If there is a chance to enter the pro-battling world... I think it would be close enough." Eryk seemed entirely genuine in his statements.

By the end of his remarks, Geiger was grinning, and even Natalie wore a subtle smile as she made notes. The promoter inclined his head, adjusting the lay of the watch on his wrist and humming almost to himself. “Well... after all that I think it's only fair to tell you that sponsorships are a crapshoot—sometimes a company is only looking for one specific thing and can't be budged." He rolled his eyes, as if this were a problem he'd been frustrated by too often. “But... somehow I think I'll be able to set something up for both of you. I've learned enough to know who to approach first, at least. You don't mind me sharing these details with potential sponsors?"

Kas shook his head; he sort of figured some of that would be necessary. Hell, the famous pro battlers were followed around by actual journalists, who would be much less scrupulous about digging into the past than Geiger was—he at least did the courtesy of asking directly.

Eryk shook his head as well. “If it helps us find a sponsor, then by all means use the information to the best of your abilities. We are..." Eryk paused in his statement as he glanced towards Kas and Cy. “We are counting on you for this. If there is anything else you need... or any further questions answered, I will do so."

“I'll do my best," the older man promised, reaching into his breast pocket and removing a small tin case. From it, he drew out three business cards, sliding them across the table to Kas, Ryk, and Cy. “I'm sure we'll be in touch over the due course of things, and I have all your contact information already, but if there's anything you want to ask me, or something I can help with, feel free to give me a call." He smiled affably at them.

“It can be a lot at once, trying to break into this world. I hear you've got a pretty expert mentor, but if for some reason you find yourself with a question he can't answer... I've been in the business a while. Might be able to help."

Huh. That seemed pretty above and beyond, really. "Thanks, Mr. Geiger," Kas said, sliding the card into his wallet.

“Please," he replied. “Call me Antonio."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK


Image


November 2nd
Field Office 9 - Morning - Light Rain
Cyrilla Niav


“Cyrilla."

She jumped at the sound of his voice, knocking over the cup that held her pencils. Cyrilla glanced up at Eryk, pursed her lips together, and tried to keep the emotion off of her face. She'd just read an email... and she didn't want to share the contents of it with Eryk. Not yet, at least. She knew what he would say, what he would try to do. But she had to do this. Alone. She couldn't defy her parents. If they wanted her back home for a week, or two, then she had to go. Eryk, however, narrowed his eyes at her.

“The meeting will be starting without you if you don't hurry up," he stated as he moved from her doorframe. Sighing softly to herself, Cyrilla grabbed her executive coat from its place on her chair, and pulled it on. She walked behind him slowly, chewing on her bottom lip as she contemplated her options. “When do they want you back?" Eryk's question caught her off guard, as she glanced up at him. “And don't say you don't know what I'm talking about, Cy. I know they sent you a message."

“I leave tomorrow evening," she stated softly. She knew it was pointless trying to hide something from him. He always knew. “I have to let Aidan know, too, so that he can find a temporary replacement for me. I won't... be much help until I return," she added. She felt a slight shiver go down her spine. She didn't know what the reason was, only that the email hadn't sounded pleasant. They were angry about something. Sighing softly through her nose, she pushed the thought from her mind as she and Ryk approached the conference room.

“We'll talk more after this," Eryk stated as he pushed open the door. Cyrilla didn't really know if there was anything to talk about. It was simple. She forced a smile on her face, though, when she spotted Aidan and Kasimir, taking a seat in her usual spot. Eryk did the same, furrowing his brows in Aidan's direction.

Aidan glanced between them and frowned, obviously catching on to the fact that something was amiss. It was much harder to tell if Kas noticed; he looked up from his screen once, then went back to typing after a quick "hey guys." It wasn't clear what exactly he was working on, but he kept at it for a bit, lifting one hand as the other kept going to rub his thumb along the inner arch of his eyebrow, like he was easing a tension there.

Their collective boss didn't try to stop him, instead just beginning the meeting in the usual unceremonious manner. "Well," he said blandly, "the meeting with Geiger apparently went well, so nice work on that, everyone. He says he's starting to reach out to the first round of potential sponsors, so for now all we can really do on that is sit back and let the guy do his job." He lifted his shoulders in his usual lackadaisical shrug.

"It hardly seems useful to sit here and ask for full reports on Ana, since, well." He waved a hand vaguely. It was easy to understand what he meant by it—they all spent quite a bit of time with her, no one moreso than Eryk, obviously. "So I guess I'll just ask if anyone has anything new to say that we should all be aware of or not."

"I've tapped the rest of her electronics," Kas said dryly. "Is it relevant that she's really into classical music and recipes for semisweet desserts?" The mocking tone with which he said it indicated that he knew the answer.

Aidan sighed. "I doubt it sits well," he said quietly. "But this is part of the job, too. Anyone else?"

Cyrilla frowned slightly as she contemplated her options, which weren't many. She only had the one, and that was to let Aidan known she'd be gone for a couple of weeks. She just wasn't sure how much information she should tell him. She didn't have to tell him much, honestly. She could just say she'd be out of town for a couple of weeks, and be done with it.

“I'm requesting immediate leave for two weeks," she finally stated, glancing up to meet Aidan's gaze. “In the mean time, I need someone to replace me for those two weeks to cover any work that I might miss because of it." She didn't like the idea of missing work, but...

“I can cover some of the work load for you, Cyrilla," Eryk stated without glancing in her direction. “It won't inconvenience me if that's what you're worried about."

“I'm worried about you taking on too much work, Ryk. You have your own work to deal with, and that doesn't even include the time you spend helping Ana. I might not do much, but the little that you would take on would eat into that time you spend at Ana's. I'd rather Aidan have someone else fill in for me while you focus on your work." She didn't want him to overwork himself, after all. And she didn't want him to do that for her when someone else could do it easily enough.

"Well it's not like I can conjure an executive out of the ether, Niav," Aidan pointed out evenly. "A grunt's not gonna cut it. So for the time being, the three of us are just going to have to split the necessary stuff, and the not-immediately necessary stuff will just accumulate while you're out, if you can't do it remotely." He paused, then sighed.

"Also it probably doesn't make a difference, but I should theoretically remind you that NTR policy says you have to ask for shit like leave two weeks in advance. Don't worry about it this time, but whatever's so urgent's going to have to learn how to wait if this is going to happen again."

Kas glanced up again at that, clearly perplexed. It wasn't hard to figure out why—as her boss, Aidan was entitled to more information than that, if he wanted to ask for it. But he was very obviously not doing so. "I can take more of the extra than Ryk, since he's doing the heavy lifting on the Ana thing," he said simply.

Aidan nodded.

If it really came down to it, they could have Katia do some of the work, too. Not that she would, but it was still an option. Katia wouldn't be leaving until a few days after Cyrilla was, after all, but Cyrilla wasn't going to ask her. And it wasn't like she wanted to leave unexpectedly.

“Unless it's been amended, anything dealing with the family is considered excused. From my understanding, that is still in place even if we're Neo Team Rocket," Eryk stated, though. Cyrilla knew what he meant by that, and Aidan likely would, too. Even if he didn't know much about their family, there were certain rules put into place for the Koga clan's convenience.

“Even if it weren't urgent, if it dealt with the family, we'd have to answer it regardless of notificiation," he continued. Cyrilla sighed softly, though, and tapped Eryk's shoulder.

“It's fine, Ryk. I'll pull in overtime for the work I'll be missing, even if it's not on company time," she tried to jest with him, but he merely furrowed his brows. “I'm sorry for the position this will put everyone in, but I'll do my best to make it up to everyone somehow," she stated as she glanced towards Kas and Aidan. Truth be told, it was inconvenient to the three of them. She'd be placing unecessary work on them, but if she didn't have to go, it wouldn't have been a problem.

But life wasn't fair to her or Eryk, and she had accepted that fact a long time ago.

Aidan's frown deepened, but he inclined his head slightly. "Got it. I'll... well, never mind. This might sound stupid, considering you'll be in Fuchsia, but call us if you need anything."

It was small, but the smile on her face was more genuine than the smile that she'd entered with. She nodded her head in Aidan's direction, feeling her heart warm a bit at the statement. “I appreciate it, though. I will if something comes up," she replied softly. She wouldn't be able to, though, but it was nice that the offer was there.

“I don't think there's anything else as far as other updates go," Eryk stated, glancing back in Aidan's direction. Progress was moving as fast as it could with Anastasia, which meant it was moving like a squirtle, but that was fine for Cyrilla. She furrowed her brows softly and glanced up at Eryk.

“Will you let Ana know that I won't be visiting for those two weeks?" she asked. She wanted to go see the young woman after they were done with work today, but now she had to spend the rest of her evening packing the necessary things, and finding someone to take care of her pokémon for her. She couldn't bring them with her. Eryk could watch a majority of them, but Siri and Diva were another story. The noibat was too sociable and needed a certain kind of attention that Eryk wouldn't exactly be able to give. Diva was stubborn and would try and insist that she go along so Cyrilla needed someone who'd be able to handle that. Maybe since Diva was comfortable with Kas, she could ask him?

“Sure. I'll tell her when I go there," Eryk replied, placing a hand on her upper back before dropping it.

The other two seemed to be in agreement that the meeting was over, and it adjourned there, allowing all of them to return to their offices.

Or at least, it would in theory. Before Cyrilla could leave after Aidan and Eryk, Kas spoke. "Hey, Cy." He paused, looking uncharacteristically uncertain of himself for a moment before he pressed forward. "Is this—are you okay?" While he had no way of knowing the specifics since no one had told him, she had shared a bit of her general difficulty with her family. No doubt he was concerned; he didn't even seem to be trying to hide it, really.

It was sweet of him to be worried. She was still getting used to him being a friend, and she contemplated whether or not she should tell him the truth. It meant opening up a bit, and telling him that she wasn't okay. She was terrified because she didn't know what her parents wanted. She knew it had to be Katia's doing, though. The woman must have found something, or said something to Cyrilla's parents. Or maybe she told Eryk's mother, Marah, and she was the one who said something? All Cyrilla knew was that she was in trouble, and it wasn't a coincidence that Katia happened to be around when it did. It was a feeling she had because Cyrilla knew that she had been careful about a lot of things. Things that she didn't want her parents to know.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her head. “Not really," she answered. To hell with it; she could let him know how she was feeling. It wasn't like he'd be able to do much about it, and chances were this was going to be the last time she could be open with someone other than Ryk. “To be honest, I'm terrified. It's not exactly pleasant to be summoned back to the clan, especially so urgently." She rubbed at her left arm before letting her shoulders slump a bit.

“I don't know what it is that made the request so urgent, either. I have a feeling it has to do with Katia, and Ryk, but... it's speculation at best. I won't know for sure until I return," she said lightly. She sighed before she lifted her gaze back to him. “I have a favor to ask, actually," she stated, lifting her gaze so she could hold his. “I can't take my pokémon with me, so I plan on leaving most of them with Ryk. Diva and Siri, though... I need someone to watch them. Diva's notorious for escaping Ryk, but she's very comfortable with you. I don't think she'll try it like she would with Ryk. And Siri seems to be especially fond of Princess, and she likes to be sociable. Can... I ask you to watch the both of them? I'll compensate you and make sure they have enough food."

“It's a lot to ask, but you're the only one I trust with them. I'll ask Aidan or Nev to do it if you can't, though. I don't want to inconvenience you with them."

The more she talked, the deeper he frowned, a furrow appearing between his eyebrows and staying there. He let her speak, though, not saying anything until she'd been quiet for a moment or two. "I'll do it, but I don't want you to compensate me," he said after a moment. "You said it's a favor, so that's what it'll be." He made some effort to ease his expression into something lighter, but it didn't quite become a smile.

"But Cy... do you need someone to go with you? It sounds like your family's not exactly safe. If that's true, I'd like to come with."

Cyrilla was certain that the surprise she felt was also visible on her face. He wanted to go with her because her family didn't sound safe? She felt a small smile tug at her lips, but she shook her head. “Even if I did need someone to go with me, you couldn't. Anyone who isn't part of the family isn't allowed in." It was a stupid law. The clan hardly let anyone inside the compound if they weren't already part of it.

“Thanks, Kas. It..." she wasn't sure how to finish that sentence, and she furrowed her brows. “It means a lot to me that you'd offer to go with me, but it means a lot more to me that you'll take care of Siri and Diva. I'll be back," perhaps not in one piece, but she'd be back. Cyrilla just wanted to get this over and done with. “And when I'm back, we'll go do something stupid to unwind. Maybe go get drunk on the backisland, again, or poke fun of Eryk," she stated, offering a small smile as she tried to lighten the mood.

He exhaled gently, more sigh than amused huff, but it was something, and the minuscule turn at the corner of his mouth was almost a smile. "Whichever you prefer." He looked like he had more to say about the family issue, but if he did he kept it back, choosing to defer to her judgement.

"When's the boat out? I can at least see you off at the pier so Diva and Siri can, too."

“The boat leaves at six, give or take," she replied. She was going to take the late boat mostly because she wanted to postpone her arrival to the compound as much as possible. And it gave her enough time to do what she needed to. She would have to go shopping first thing in the morning for Diva and Siri's food and make sure they would have everything they would need for the two weeks she would be gone.

“Thanks again, Kas. I feel like I'm going to be saying that a lot," she huffed lightly. “You... don't have to see me off, but..." she paused, chewing the bottom of her lip. She glanced down at her feet, feeling strangely shy about her next statement. Maybe because it did mean a lot to her that he was going out of his way to help her. Maybe it was because of her stupid little crush on him, but whatever it was, she forced it down, and grinned back up at him.

“I'm glad you are."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


November 3rd
Cinnabar Pier - Evening - Overcast
Kasimir Rheinallt


Unsurprisingly, the weather had not seen fit to be too nice on the day Cy departed—it had been cloudy all day and spitting rain for most of the afternoon. That much had stopped, for now, but the wind was still buffeting things about in the kind of way that promised a storm wasn't too far out. No doubt the boat's captain would be wanting to leave exactly on time to beat the storm. The water was already a bit choppy, and the shrill cries of the wingulls further out punctuated the rushing sound of the wind and the ocean.

Cy didn't have much baggage with her, which was not surprising, but it left him feeling like there wasn't a lot to do with himself on the walk over, so he slid his hands into the pockets of his light zip-up sweatshirt and tried not to think about exactly what she was leaving to go do.

It wasn't as though anyone had outright told him that her family was abusive, but you could only say things like 'they'll be upset' in a dark tone so many times before someone like him got the picture. He'd all but stated his suspicion to her yesterday, and while she hadn't confirmed it as such, her answer had been telling enough. He knew he was right, and he had a new most likely guess about where those scars on Ryk's face had come from.

It felt shitty, knowing there was nothing he could effectively do. Calling the cops was out, going with her himself was apparently out, and the nuclear option—arresting them himself—wasn't going to do anything except blow his cover without way more evidence than he had. He'd considered cracking their computers, only to find that while this was possible—okay, so he'd done more than just consider it—the Kogas effectively lived in the dark ages. They had computers, but a cursory poke around hadn't discovered much of interest. They probably kept analogue records more than digital ones.

Kas was used to a lot of things that most people should not be used to. Feeling powerless to help someone was one of them. That didn't mean he liked it. And it didn't mean this was even really about him.

"We're a little early," he said, furrowing his brow at the blocked gangplank leading to the passenger boat. Not letting people board yet, then. "You want to find somewhere to sit while we wait?"

“Sure, we can go sit over there under the awning," she stated, shifting the bag over her shoulder a bit. Siri was clinging to Cyrilla's head, resting slightly on her free shoulder. The noibat seemed to be pleased with the weather, though, unlike most of the people. “We probably have enough time to grab a quick drink, too. They're not as good as Jo's, but they have decent chocolate malts, here," Cy seemed to suggest as she glanced up at Kas.

"You want a malt when it's this chilly out?" he asked, inflecting his tone with a teasing lilt and shaking his head with mock befuddlement. "I think I can make that happen. Chocolate or some other flavor?" He figured the least he could do was pay for the damn thing; for once he planned on insisting if she tried to demur.

“Chocolate, of course," she replied, managing a grin in his direction. It didn't quite reach her eyes, though. She didn't seem to be in a good mood, despite the smile she'd been wearing. Perhaps because she was leaving to a place she didn't want to go to. “And malts are good in any kind of weather, I'll have you know. Chilly or hot, malts are just... good to have," she added, glancing back out towards the pier. She seemed to be contemplating something before turning her gaze back towards Kas.

“I'll take a small one if they do smaller sizes. Don't want to get stuck with it if I don't finish it. I could take it on the boat, but..." she trailed off, shrugging her shoulders. Siri chirped in disapointment as the gesture caused her to be jostled a bit. Instead, she climbed down Cyrilla's shoulder, and stood on the ground, clinging to Cy's leg. Cy merely rolled her eyes at the noibat but smiled nonetheless.

Kas nodded, making his way over to the little restaurant and placing a to-go order at the counter, for a small chocolate malt and a large one. The guy behind the counter looked a little surprised, but the machine must have been in working order, because he came back with them in about a minute. Paying for both, Kas picked up a couple of spoons in addition to the straws and carried everything outside, where he rejoined Cy.

"One chocolate malt, small in deference to the lady's wishes," he said, keeping his tone light. He nodded down at the pier, then dropped easily into a seated position right there on the dock. His legs were long enough that if he let them hang off the edge, he'd soak them halfway to his knees.

Popping the lid off his own styrofoam cup, he set it down carefully, partway under his shoe so the wind wouldn't carry it out into the ocean, and dug in with his spoon. "Two weeks, huh?" He said it more than asked, as he well knew she'd be gone at least that long. "Apartment'll be lonely without you."

It was true. Perhaps too true, if he were being totally honest with himself. Of all the parts of his job, not getting emotionally invested had always been one of the harder things. He'd managed okay for a long time, but now... he wasn't so sure. Intellectually, he knew he shouldn't be sticking his nose into any of this. But he'd stopped doing this job by the book before he'd ever really started. It was just all the more obvious lately.

She huffed lightly, taking a seat on his other side, and folding her lengs underneath her. It allowed Siri to climb into her lap, as Cyrilla spooned a mouthful of her malt. “Well, you'll have Diva and Siri to keep you company. And if you get really lonely," she paused to grin softly at him, “you could always just sleep in my bed." She chuckled lightly at her own joke, it seemed before shaking her head.

Kas sorted. "I'll be lonely, not a total creep," he replied with mock offense.

“Honestly, it probably won't even be two weeks. It'll probably be a week at most, depending on what it is they want. I can't say for sure," she shrugged her shoulders lightly, feeding the noibat a bite of the malt. She replaced the spoon with a straw, perhaps so she wouldn't use the spoon she'd just used for Siri.

“But if that's your way of saying you'll miss me, ditto. I'm going to miss you, too, Kas. Two weeks might not seem like a long time, but time has a funny way of dragging itself out when you're in Fuchsia. It's not going to be the same as having you or Eryk around. Or even Aidan and Nev, and I can't forget about Ana. You guys... it's the first time I've felt like I've had friends. I might be a shitty one, but... well, I appreciate you all for being patient with me."

“Navigating something new like that is... it's still a little strange," she stated, giving him a half smile before rubbing between Siri's ears.

He shook his head, a little emphatic about it. "Everyone's got a learning curve, Cy," he replied simply. And honestly from what he'd inferred of how she grew up, the more surprising fact was that she'd managed to get this far at all. He felt a little twinge in his chest, and tried not to let the emotion that went with it show on his face, taking a spoonful of his malt so as to occupy his face with something else.

"You're not a shitty friend," he said once he'd swallowed. "Just a new one, and for all that you're doing pretty well." He could point out specific incidents if he wanted: drinks on the backisland, making soup for Ana when she was sick, setting up an elaborate haunted house for Nev's birthday and the office party, helping Ryk prep for his pro battling debut, all of it. But it wasn't even anything specific that made him so strongly sure of what he said. It was the little things, the boring everyday stuff. Little ways she had of demonstrating that she did care.

Switching off to make food with him, sharing her streaming passwords, lending him her stapler when the one by the printer mysteriously disappeared again. Normal shit.

“Well, that's nice of you to say," she replied softly. “But I suppose you're right about that. Learning how to be a friend is just..." she paused as if she didn't want to say what she'd meant to, and shook her head. “When I come back... if things seem a little off, I want you to know something," she began, turning her attention towards him. Her brows were furrowed, and her lips were pursed together. What she had to say next seemed important to her.

“I want you to know that I'm glad you were my friend, and that I got to be yours. I want you to know that... this meant something to me, even it might seem silly to most people. I value our friendship, perhaps a lot more than I should, but that doesn't change the fact that I do. I'm glad you were my friend, Kas."

Contrary to the effect she probably intended the words to have, they filled him more than anything with a profound sense of alarm. "The fuck are you talking about, Cy?" his tone was low, his eyes uncharacteristically dark as he ducked his head to meet hers. "This doesn't get put in the past tense unless we want to put it there." If that was what she wanted, he'd accept it, but dammit, she didn't. He knew she didn't. So what the fuck gave?

She sighed heavily, keeping her attention on Siri. “I've told you before, Kas. I don't get a choice. I don't know what Katia has told my family, but... I have to expect the worst. If that's the case, chances are I... won't be able to continue this friendship with you, or anyone else. I'll have to take the mission at face value," she spoke softly, almost as if she didn't want to say anything at all.

“I'll have to keep everyone at arms length, be more professional. Colder. I'll have to treat every one as if they mean nothing to me, and... as much as I don't want that, it's what I'll have to do. I don't want to risk anything else with my family, and I don't want them to do something to Ryk because of my inadequacies. Ryk has done enough for me, endured enough for me," she continued, taking in a deep, slow breath.

“That's why I'm telling you this, now." She lifted her gaze back to his, offering him a small smile. “That's why I'm thanking you, now, because I don't think I'll be able to when I come back. What this is... the last few months we've had, I'll always cherish that. You're a very sweet and kind person, and I'm sorry you wasted that on me. But I'm glad you did because for the first time in my life... it felt like I mattered and that I could have friends, and enjoy them."

It was his turn to sigh, and shake his head. He thought he understood the root of the misunderstanding now. "Cy," he said, his tone gentling. He set his malt down, reaching out, one finger extended until the tip rested over her shirt, on her sternum. "Friendship happens here," he said. "Well actually it happens in your head, because the brain is in charge of emotions and not actually the heart, but allow me the metaphor for a moment." The faintest half-smile tugged at a corner of his mouth.

"I understand if you have to act different. I do. Believe me, I—" he swallowed, knowing he was skirting dangerously close to the one thing he could not, under any circumstances, tell anyone. "You've got things to protect, including yourself, and I get that. But this? In here?" He pressed a little harder, for emphasis. "This is yours. No matter how secret you have to keep it. And I promise you, no matter how you have to act to me, I'm going to keep believing there's a tiny, tiny part of it I'm still in. So... this isn't the end of our friendship. No matter what they make you do, okay? You do matter, because you matter to me. And I'm gonna keep hoping that I matter to you."

“See, now that's not fair," she stated, frowning slightly as she kept his gaze. “You being this... nice," she seemed to clarify, but a small smile appeared on her face nonetheless. “And this is why you're probably one of my best friends. You always say things to help me understand a little bit better how these friendships work. And you'll always matter, Kas. To me. Just like Ryk does, and Ana, and the others. You moreso because, well..." she trailed off, glancing down a little sheepish.

“Well, like I said, you're like my best friend. I won't... I won't let whatever they do, break me. I'll come back, and nothing will have changed. I won't have to act any different than I do now, and I won't have to distance myself from anyone. And if I do," she paused to rehold his gaze, “I ask that you don't let me. If I try to distance myself from everyone, don't... remind me why I don't want to. Can I ask that of you?" She seemed serious about it, if anything.

And because she was serious, he couldn't be anything else. Wouldn't want to be anything else. "I promise, Cy. Don't worry about that—you just do whatever you have to do to get through the next couple weeks. We'll get the rest figured out when you get back." Above all, that was what he wanted. And while Kas wasn't enough of an asshole to think that what he wanted was the important part here, he hoped nevertheless that she'd abide by the wish. Because it meant that things might just work out okay, in the end.

The smile that crossed her face was one of her more genuine ones that she wore when she smiled at brightly at him. “Alright. We'll get the rest figured out when I get back," she seemed to repeat, patting Siri's head before reaching towards her belt. She pulled the last pokeball, Diva's, and gave it a light toss, summoning the lycanroc. Immediately Diva shook her large mane, and glanced between Kas and Cy. She huffed lightly, but took a seat on Cy's other side, tilting her head a bit as Cy glanced at her.

“Alright, Diva, you be good for Kas, here. If you promise, I'll give you the rest of this malt. If Kas says you were anything but good, I'm going to have Aidan use Brick to give you a good workout, alright?" she stated, causing Diva to give Cy a rather flat look before shaking her head. Cy laughed softly as she used the spoon from earlier to give Siri another bite of the malt before handing it over to Diva. Once Siri was finished with her bite, Cy picked her up to set her on Kas's shoulder.

“You can leave the door to my room open so that Diva and Siri can sleep in there. I don't mind, really. They can take care of themselves if you leave their food in my room as well. The only thing you'll really need to do is socialize Siri a bit. She likes talking to people as I'm sure you've noticed," Cy stated as she glanced behind her. It looked like the boat was getting ready to start loading its passengers, and she sighed a bit heavily.

“If something comes up with Diva or Siri, you can take them to Ryk. I won't be reachable until I get back, but he'll be able to handle the two of them. Thanks again, Kas," she stated as she stood up. “I'd like one more thing from you, though, if you don't mind," she continued as she huffed almost to herself it seemed.

“I'd like a hug, if you don't mind. You give the best ones and I feel like I'll be able to take on the world if you did." She was grinning at him, now.

He laughed a little at that, but stood willingly, opening his arms and letting her step inside his considerable wingspan before wrapping them around her and pulling her comfortably to his chest. "Deal," he said, giving her a soft squeeze and resisting the urge to lift her off her feet. She was kind of short, after all, compared to him, and it would have been slightly more comfortable for both of them that way.

Still though, he put his back into it, and his heart, too. That was the key to a good hug—you had to mean it, and not worry so much about the rest. "Take care of yourself," he murmured against her hair. "It's my best friend I'm trusting you with here, so you better."

She laughed softly at his statement and nodded her head where it was buried. “I'll make sure I do my best," she replied softly, turning her head to place a chaste kiss on his cheek as she pulled away from the hug. “And you take care not to get too lonely without me, alright?" she stated, reaching down to grab her bag and pull it over her shoulder. Diva made a soft whimpering noise as Cyrilla ran a hand through the lycanroc's mane. Siri chirped from her spot on Kas's head, but didn't seem to understand what was going on.

“You be a good girl for Kas, alright? I'll be back in a week, so help him take care of Siri until then. I'll be fine," she whispered the last part as she leaned down to hug Diva. The lycanroc didn't seem too convinced, but returned the hug. “See ya later, Kas," she stated, giving Kas a two finger mock salute before leaving towards the boat. Diva glanced up at Kas and sat on her hindquarters, before watching her trainer leave.

Impossible, he wanted to say, but it didn't seem like the right moment, not for a light joke.

And then, when he watched her board, hand resting on Diva's head, he realized he wasn't even sure it was a joke.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



November 7th
Field Office 9 - Evening - Hurricane
Nevena Solomon


Nev sighed heavily as she pulled her hair into a tail. They were, essentially, trapped inside of the office building because of the storm outside. The hurricane sirens had blasted over the loudspeakers, and while some of the grunts were able to leave, Nev, Eryk, Kas, Aidan, and Katia were among the ones who didn't make it out in time. It wouldn't have bothered her so much, but of all the people she was stuck with, she could do without Katia.

The woman was nearly insufferable. She could understand, now, why Eryk and Aidan didn't seem especially fond of her. Nev was almost certain there was an underlying hatred in Eryk's case, but she couldn't be too sure. “How long do you think we'll be stuck here?" she asked, turning in Eryk's direction. The five of them had gathered in the conference room mostly because it was the only place that had enough space to breathe.

“Who knows. Maybe a few hours, maybe all night, but it doesn't fucking matter," Katia answered, causing Nev to furrow her brows.

I wasn't asking you, she simply thought as Katia drummed her fingers on the table.

“Can you stop? It's fucking annoying," Eryk stated, a little irritated by Katia's actions. The woman merely grinned, and continued drumming her fingers. Nev sighed softly, and turned towards Kas.

“Think you can find us a good music station?" she asked. The lights were still on, but with the way the weather was going, who knew how long it would be before they went out.

He blinked at the question, his face pulling to the side. "Well I doubt we're getting any radio signal in this weather but the wifi's working for now I suppose." He opened the top part of his laptop and for a moment, his finger blurred rapidly over the keys. "Uh... genre requests? I'm not really sure what everyone here thinks is 'good.'"

"I'll listen to anything that's not pop," Aidan replied, leaning back in his conference room chair with his arms crossed over his chest. He'd been about ready to go home before the sirens happened, so there wasn't really anything for him to be doing, unlike Kas, who seemed to be at least trying to get some work finished in the meantime.

“Well, I think anything is fine at this point, really. Maybe just actual music, like classical or something of the sort. I think it would really help to fill the silence," Nev stated as an alternative. Clearly it was the wrong thing to say as Katia heaved a dramatic sigh.

“Ugh, classical music is boring, though. Play something lively, and maybe electric," Katia stated as she turned her attention towards Kas. Eryk immediately gave Katia a flat look and rolled his eyes.

“I agree with Solomon; play something that fills the noise," he stated as he turned his attention away from Katia. Nev chuckled softly before pulling out her laptop. If they had wifi for a while longer, she could at least send an email to one of her colleagues to see if they had a suitable power source for their machine. They hadn't been able to find one, and that left her research at an impasse. If they wanted to get somewhere, they needed to be able to find something that would work.

And something like that wasn't easy.

Kasimir sighed. Clearly the lack of consensus had left him a bit less than certain what to do. With a roll of his eyes, he made a few keystrokes, and it wasn't long before the introduction to something mellow but synth-based filled the room. Clearly that was the best he could do with the conflicting opinions.

Unfortunately for Nev's work plans, the wifi seemed to be knocked out. It wasn't clear how Kas was getting the music if so, but it was possible it was predownloaded.

Aidan muttered something inaudible under his breath and propped his feet up on the conference table, tilting his head back to look upside-down out the window behind him. "That's probably going to get worse before it gets better," he noted flatly.

“Thanks for the info, captain obvious," Katia muttered beneath her breath, leaning forward to place her chin in the palm of her hand, and rest her elbow against the desk. Eryk rolled his eyes at the statement, but didn't seem inclined to say anything. Perhaps he thought it was best to not pester Katia or feed her nagging.

“If it bothers you that much, there are other places to be in the facility. You do not have to be here with us, Miss Durova," Nev stated as she glanced up from her laptop. From the way Katia was sitting and acting, it seemed like she didn't want to be in the room with everyone. Or maybe it was because Nev and Kas were there? Katia would often glance in Eryk and Aidan's direction which Nev found strange, but didn't necessarily know why. The way she glanced at Eryk was completely different from when she glanced at Aidan, and Nev felt a little twinge in her chest every time.

“It's not that easy to get rid of Katia, Solomon," Eryk, stated in a slow drawl. He was leaning back in his chair. Katia snorted as she rolled her eyes. Nev wasn't necessarily trying to get rid of Katia, but she thought it might release some of the tension that seemed to be building up. She sighed softly, and glanced at the time.

“Well, if we're going to be here for a while, we might as well see if there is anything we can scrounge up for dinner. It's almost dinner time," she stated as she glanced towards the others. Eryk seemed to contemplate it before shrugging his shoulders.

“I'll go with you if you want to see what there is," he stated, pushing his chair back and glancing in Katia's direction. “Anywhere else is better than being here," he added, though Nev understood his implication. He didn't want to be anywhere near Katia, but the situation was unfortunately doing just that. Nev smiled regardless, and closed her laptop. With the wifi out, she wasn't going to get much else done. Once it was placed safely back into the bag, Nev stood from her spot and glanced towards Kas and Aidan. She went to invite them, however; as soon as she opened her mouth to say something, the lights went out.

“Well isn't that fucking great," Katia groaned as she sat up.

“Uh... why haven't the back up generators kicked in, yet?" Nev asked. Eryk shrugged, indicating he didn't know.

Kas heaved yet another sigh. Closing the lid of his laptop, he checked out the window to confirm that yes, the lights all around were out, too, throwing the entire area into heavy darkness. There was a slight metallic grinding, and then a small light appeared, throwing warm shades of gold onto Aidan's face and hair. He'd flicked on his lighter, and immediately started checking through the drawers of the side table near the window.

He came away from the search with a proper flashlight, which he flipped on, throwing the beam towards the door. "Should probably see what's perishable in the fridge," he noted. "Since I'm thinking the power will stay out a while."

There was a slight pause, then Kas hummed a note of agreement. "Backup's on a separate grid, but that's out too, seems like. Might've been hit by lightning or something."

"I can check the breakers when we get downstairs," Aidan added. "If those don't work we're just going to have to wait."

“I'll go with you to check the breakers," Katia stated as she stood from her chair. She didn't seem inclined to push it back into place, and that didn't sit well with Nev, for some reason. Maybe it was because Nev always thought it was common courtesy to push chairs back in once you were done with them? She shook the thought from her mind, though, as Eryk made a slight snorting sound.

“Why would you go with Aidan? You don't know shit about breaker boxes. You'd just get in his way," he stated, earning a harsh glare from Katia. Nevena blinked a bit and tilted her head. If anyone knew about breaker boxes, it was likely to be Aidan and Kasimir. Not that breakers were complicated, but Nev didn't know how true Eryk's statement was.

“Because I'd rather be with him than with either of you three," Katia retorted, causing Eryk to roll his eyes. Nev sighed softly and shook her head.

“We have to make it downstairs, first, before anyone goes anywhere. And we don't have back-up flashlights in here," Nev spoke as she reached inside her bag to pull out her phone. She could use the flashlight aspect of it, but only for brief moments. She didn't want to drain the battery too fast with no way to charge it. Who knew how long the lights would be out for?

“Imp... you're better at seeing in the dark, help out," Eryk stated suddenly as a bright red flash signaled the gengar's release. That wasn't a bad idea, to have the pokemon help out, however; none of the pokemon Nev had would be much help.

“Let's get going. The sooner we can turn these lights on, the sooner I can be rid of you all," Katia stated, causing Nev to furrow her brows.

“It's not like anyone invited you to come along," she muttered beneath her breath. It was loud enough, though, that Eryk heard it. He huffed lightly but it didn't sound quite like a laugh.

One of the others snorted in what sounded like amusement, but she couldn't tell whether it was Kas or Aidan. The group headed downstairs, the bright beam of the flashlight illuminating the path as Aidan led the way to the kitchen. "Should be some candles in one of the drawers," he said, sounding vaguely puzzled by this. "I'm not sure why, exactly, but I've seen them before."

He handed his lighter off to Eryk and nodded back out the hallway. "Breakers are that way. I'll be back in a minute." He paused as if waiting for the inevitability of Katia moving to join him, then ducked back out of the room.

When they were gone, Kas whistled, low and soft. "I honestly forget how awful she is every time she leaves," he admitted. "It's like I can't even believe it's real. Then she comes back, and reminds me it is." Digging through a few of the drawers, he found a small tea light, then flicked Aidan's lighter, catching the flame on the wick and pushing it towards the center of the kitchen island before pulling out another, this one more of a squat jar candle.

“Be happy you didn't grow up with it," Eryk mumbled. Nev could almost hear Eryk rolling his eyes in the dark, and chuckled lightly to herself. “Since we're in the kitchen, might as well see what we can use to make dinner. The stove is a gas one, so we should still be able to get by," he stated, making a motion with his hand.

“Well, anything should be fine at this point. It's mostly what we have for ingredients that we can make a dish with. I saw a pack of noodles in the pantry not too long ago. If they're still there, we can make ramen or pasta," Nev suggested. It would be the easiest and simplest thing to make. Nev couldn't really cook all that well, but she remembered Kas could. Eryk seemed to do okay since he occasionally helped out Ana. Maybe she should invest in cooking classes?

Kasimir hummed, clearly considering this. "All right, you two go through the fridge and pantry and see what there is. I'm going to check the cabinets to see what supplies I can cook with." It was a fact that pots or pans or spices occasionally disappeared from the kitchen, so he probably wanted to make sure there was actually cookware to use.

“I'll take the fridge, you take the pantry," she stated towards Eryk as he nodded his head. He made his way towards his destination as Nev headed towards the fridge. She rummaged through it rather quickly, scanning as she went to see what they had. She didn't want to keep the door open longer than necessary if Aidan and Katia couldn't get the lights back on. Or the back up generators.

“We only have salt and pepper," Eryk stated as he seemed to rummage through the pantry. “And some rice and sesame seeds. What do you have?" he asked. Nev pursed her lips together.

“Some tofu, soy sauce, and a thing of green onions. There's not much else in here right now," she answered. That means that someone would have to go grocery shopping tomorrow. “Do you think you can make anything with those limited ingredients, Kas?" she asked, turning her attention towards him. Maybe he had something in his repertoire?

He snorted. "Well it won't be super fancy or anything, but I think I've got enough for something, yeah." Pulling down a frying pan from the cabinet, he eyed Eryk for a moment and switched it for a larger one. "I think we'll probably be—" He paused as a few emergency lights flickered on, illuminating the kitchen just enough that they could see each other reasonably well.

"Well, well. Looks like boss got the backup generator online, at least."

“Well that's a relief," she stated more to herself. “We won't be without some kind lighting for the whole night, at least," she added, turning towards Kas and Eryk. Eryk, however, had his lips pursed as he seemed to contemplate something.

“We're going to be stuck here all night," he stated, turning to face Kas. “The rain hasn't stopped, and it's coming down harder," he continued. Now that she actually concentrated, Nev could still hear the rain hitting the building. To even hear it through as much layering as the old mansion had, was a testament to how hard it was coming down.

“It could be worse," Nev decided to say, giving Eryk a reassuring smile. “We could be stuck in a smaller building with unpleasant company," she continued, earning a soft snort from Eryk.

"So... we could be stuck in a smaller building, you mean," Kas rejoined, opening the tofu pack with a knife and draining it in the sink. "Because while I love you guys, I could uh... I could do without everyone's least-favorite delibirdbrain." He rolled his eyes, visible even in the scant recessed lights, and shook his head faintly, leaving the tofu to drain while he diced the green onions.

Probably Katia and Aidan wouldn't be too much longer, if they'd managed to restore emergency power, but clearly he wasn't too pleased by the prospect.

Nev couldn't blame him for not being pleased. “How is it that the two of you are from the same clan," Nev asked, glancing in Eryk's direction. “You two are nothing alike," she added. It wasn't that two people couldn't have separate personalities or differences. Nev just found it strange that they were of the same place and yet complete opposites. Eryk snorted softly as he shrugged.

“Guess I was lucky," he replied, causing Nev to smile a bit. “She's a plague on humanity, but she'll be gone soon," he added, straightening out a bit and glancing in Kas's direction. “Need help with anything? Before the, as you put it, 'delibirdbrain' shows up to ruin everything?" he asked.

"I'm good. Small number of ingredients." Kas seemed to be working his way through them rather efficiently, too, and the stove was burning away at the pan he'd found to fry the tofu. He was whipping up some kind of sauce to go with it, too, it looked like, the process smooth and easy.

"You think she knows that, though? That's she's gonna be out of here soon? Because it seems like she's made herself right at home, you know what I mean? Boss's place is probably more hers than his at this point." He grimaced, and shuddered. Whether that was put on or not was hard to tell.

“With the way she's glued to Aidan's side, I don't think she does," Eryk replied, grimacing slightly as if he were plagued with some unpleasant thought. Nev didn't blame him, really. Aidan spent a majority of his time at her place; Mama Basil had been more than happy to accomodate him by setting up the couch as a potential bed if he needed some place to sleep. It seemed like Katia was very fond of Aidan in a way that made Nev feel uncomfortable.

She couldn't put an actual word to it; jealousy felt like too much of a word, and she wasn't even sure that was the right one. Why would she be jealous of Katia? “Something bothering you, Solomon? You're glaring at the table," Eryk stated, snapping Nev out of her stupor.

“No, I'm fine. Just wondering how you and Aidan managed to deal with her, is all. She hasn't been unpleasant to me, but from what I get from you and Aidan," didn't necessarily mean that Katia wasn't an unpleasant person. Sure, Katia would occasionally glare at Nev when she was working with Aidan, or if she happened to be on one of her walks with him, however; Nev never wronged Katia.

“Just because she hasn't been unpleasant doesn't mean that she doesn't have it out for you. You are a potential threat to her in a way that I will never understand. She won't do anything to you, she's not a complete idiot..." Eryk trailed off before pinching the bridge of his nose. “But do not, under any circumstances, be alone with her. She has a way of getting into people's head."

Nev pursed her lips together, unsure of what he meant by that.

“In any case, whether she knows she's leaving or not doesn't change the fact that she is. She's here on clan business which means she'll have to report back to them in the time frame she gave them. Even she wouldn't dare go against protocol," he continued before shrugging his shoulders.

"Never thought I'd be singing the praises of buraeucracy," Kas noted with a wry smile, already plating up their food. "But I guess there's a first time for everything."

Eryk seemed like he was about to reply to something, however; a shriek caused him to turn his head in the direction it came from. A slow, subtle smile crossed his features as he huffed lightly. “I guess Imp couldn't pass up the chance to have fun in the dark," he stated as if to clarify the source of the sound.

“Nero!" it was Katia's voice, and she seemed to be upset with Eryk. She wasn't anywhere near them, yet, but Nev couldn't help the light chuckle that left her. Kas laughed, too, soft and under his breath, but easily audible in the kitchen.

“Well, I suppose if we want even a semblance of a nice dinner together, we should probably get started before she returns," she stated, glancing towards Kas. Eryk was already picking up his plate, and nodded his head.

“Agreed. Aidan can manage on his own," Eryk stated before he took a bite of his food. Honestly, Nev wasn't sure how Aidan managed it. She felt a little bad for him. Maybe when Katia left, she could get him an appointment at the local massage place?

Kas nodded emphatically. "Patience of a saint, asskicking skills of a total badass. I'd say I want to be him when I grow up, but I don't really plan on growing up in the first place." He grinned at the both of them, setting a couple other plates aside and taking up his own, sliding into a stool across from the two of them.

"Enjoy it, guys. Might be the last pleasantness we get all night."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



November 9th
Cinnabar Island - Late Afternoon - Overcast
Katia Durova


She wasn't getting anywhere with this shit. So far, the only sketchy thing Nero was doing was living at another woman's place. For mission purposes, she had been told. Mission purpose her ass. Like he'd actually live at a target's place for something like that. Whatever Gregorovich had him doing must be something big, though. Katia knew the type of person Eryk was. He wasn't the type to get too deep into a mission as to actually live at the target's residence. Mostly because Niav was his fiancée and there was a reputation he had to uphold. Even if it was just for the purpose of Gregorovich's mission, there had to have been another way to get closer to the target. Eryk would have thought of one.

Pushing the thought to the back of her mind, she glanced at the current people she was with: Aidan and Rheinallt. She'd managed to drag Aidan away from the woman next door, Solomon. Katia didn't particularly care what their relationship was, but she didn't like the fact that Solomon and Aidan seemed close. And Katia was a firm believer that a man and woman couldn't simply be just friends. No, there was always some underlying attraction that would eventually surface. Katia couldn't have that, though. Aidan was going to be hers, eventually. She would have to continue weeding out any possible competition. Katia wasn't stupid to believe that she wouldn't have competition for Aidan, but she just didn't know how much. So far, it only seemed like Solomon.

“So why exactly is Nero living with the target?" she decided to ask. Nero wasn't going to say much, and Aidan could only give so much information to her. Rheinallt, however, was in no particular position to say or do anything, but Katia figured he would be the one with the most information to pry from. The only question was, how hard was it going to be to get the information she wanted from him?

Rheinallt, strolling along next to her, was eating what looked to be grilled pineapple slices out of a small paper basket. He'd picked it up from a food cart a little way back. It wasn't entirely clear why he was here, except that he'd already been with Aidan when Katia managed to hunt him down away from Solomon. It seemed like one of the others was always around him, whether it was one of those two, or Nero. At the question, he shrugged.

"Deep cover, obviously. To get closer to her, he's convinced her he's a certain type of person, and acted accordingly. It happened to end up with him renting the extra room at her place. It's not like they're fucking or something, relax."

Katia rolled her eyes heavily at Rheinallt. She wasn't concerned about that. “It wouldn't be the first time he's done that for the sake of a mission," she replied off-handedly. It was, however, a first that he'd actually decided to live with a target. For as long as she'd known him, he'd never really so much as expressed a desire to be that close to a target. There was nothing in it for him other than a quick completion of his assignment.

“But Nero's not a people person. He wouldn't want to live with someone who wasn't Niav," she stated, glancing towards Aidan for a second before turning her attention back to Rheinallt. “He's always requested to be with her whenever it came to moving around. That he'd volunteer to live with this target seems a little off. Does she know something that she's extorting him?"

Rheinallt burst into laughter; even Aidan snorted, a strange smile flickering over his face for a moment before it disappeared, its meaning unclear. While the other continued laughing, he replied. "Whatever it is—and I'm pretty sure it's just convenient since this mission is quite long-term and nebulous—it's not that. The target's not exactly the kind of person who could or would do something like that."

Katia felt her eyes narrow thinly in Rheinallt's direction. “Everyone is capable of it; whether or not she could or would is only a matter of what she does or doesn't have." Katia knew that to be a fact. Everyone was capable of some despicable thing in some form or another. It was something she'd learned outside of the clan, and inside of it as well. She rolled her eyes, though, and shook her head softly.

“Whether or not it is just convenient is irrelevant. There's something else going on," something that Nero wasn't saying. Katia would have to ask the Niavs if they were able to get anything from their daughter when she returned to Fuchsia. “So in layman's terms, why is this person so interesting to the boss?" From what she was hearing, it didn't seem that the target was too interesting. She must be from some prominent family, or was maybe of some use to Gregorovich in some way.

Rheinallt's laughter had trailed into chuckles; he tossed his empty paper basket into the nearest trash can. "Arceus, boss, can you just picture Ana trying to extort someone? I mean what's she gonna do, pout? Look really earnestly at him?" He assumed a wide-eyed, innocent expression, looking like—what was that expression—butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. He was strangely good at it, but unable to maintain it for long before he laughed again, shaking his head all the while.

Aidan rolled his eyes. "I don't know what to tell you, Katia," he said bluntly. "Misson details are classified. Nero's doing what he feels like he has to do to meet the objective. Suffice it to say that we need some pretty personal information on the girl, and she's not the kind to trust easily, or to fall for a typical seduction or whatever."

Katia felt her eye twitch lightly at Rheinallt's antics. She wanted to smack him, but decided against it. He was taller than her by at least a foot, and had a way about him that was slightly intimidating. It didn't necessary warrant fear, but it did make her slightly cautious. As for the mission being classified, Katia would just have to see if Gregorovich would be willing to shed a little more light about it. It would be more difficult that way for her, but from the way Rheinallt was reacting, she wasn't going to be getting much information from him.

“If that's the case for Nero, then what's your case, Aidan? Boss doesn't normally send you in to babysit." No, Gregorovich valued Aidan too much to send him on such a menial job. He had to be back up just in case Nero failed. Not that Nero failed his missions before, but perhaps this might be his first? Katia felt a small spike of happiness at that thought. If he failed... he'd likely fall from favor. And if he fell from favor...

He blinked slowly, then lifted his shoulders with his usual nonchalance. She'd never seen him get angry about anything, really, or excited for that matter. "Project's important," he said, drawing a carton of cigarettes from one pocket and his lighter from another. He flicked it a couple times, then lifted one of the sticks of tobacco from the packet with his mouth, lighting the end and then putting the carton and lighter away.

Taking a long draw, he exhaled. "Important enough that he wants me directly supervising. It's not the most eventful job I've ever been given, but I don't make a point of questioning my orders." It's subtle, but she can detect a faint emphasis on the last few words.

She rolled her eyes at it, nonetheless. It was apparent that she wasn't going to get much information from either Aidan or Rheinallt. They were useless to her for the moment, but she'd figure something out eventually. For the time being, she'd just have to make due with the information she had, now. It wasn't much, though. Not enough to use it against Nero, and not enough to make any implications that she could.

“I'll find out sooner or later," she stated more to herself with a light shrug. And she would find out. She wasn't quite that good at gathering information, but she could be creative when she wanted to be. She wouldn't have obtained her rank thus far if she wasn't. She would just have to keep a close eye on Nero, for now, but she didn't have much time. She was leaving the day after tomorrow. Maybe she'd ask the boss to be relocated here so she could? On different pretenses, of course. Maybe he had work she could do, or something of that nature.

“What does this island have to offer in way of entertainment; I'm bored," she asked. Might as well entertain herself one way or another, she supposed.

Aidan threw a look at Rheinallt, who grinned. "Well that depends," he said. "What entertains you? Club scene? Long, romantic walks on the beach at sunset? Cuddly baby pokémon? Roller derby?"

“And if I said long romantic walks on the beach, you gonna provide just that, Rheinallt?" she replied with a bit of a bite to her words. He was an annoying little fuck, wasn't he? She didn't know how Nero put up with it, let alone Aidan. But from the looks of it, Aidan seemed to be doing just fine in Rheinallt's company.

“Forget I even asked," she continued. She wasn't sure she could be in Rheinallt's presence for much longer, anyway. He was like a beedrill: annoying. “Whatever, I'm heading back to the apartment. You coming or are you going to be with the shit head?" she asked, glancing in Aidan's direction. She had a feeling she knew the answer he was going to provide. She'd make it one day so that he wouldn't even have a choice. For now, she was going to bide her time until it was right.

"I dunno, Katia, you just stood me up. Boss here might have to do the honorable thing and take your place." Casually, he swung an arm over Aidan's shoulders and made a show of leaning into it, even going so far as to bury his nose in Aidan's red hair, a sly grin playing at his mouth.

For his part, Aidan rolled his eyes, but surprisingly tolerated the contact. Remi had tried something similar, once, and Aidan had nearly broken his arm seemingly by automatic reflex. But he wasn't even tense, though he did level Rheinallt with a flat look. "I ain't gonna take you out, but if you want a consolation drink, I guess I can buy one."

"Perfect."

Oh, she was going to murder Rheinallt. She wasn't sure how, yet, but she was going to.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Anastasia Asher Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


November 10th
Cinnabar Pier - Noon - Light Rain
Anastasia Asher


Unsurprisingly for the time of year, it was raining on Cinnabar Island on this particular day. This was a bit unfortunate, since everyone had come out to the harbor to see Mel off on the next stage of her journey, but aside from the drops of water spitting into their faces, most everyone seemed to be in high spirits as the boat pulled up to the pier and the passengers began to disembark.

Ana pushed her pink fringe back underneath the confines of her black hood, blinking to clear her vision. Like her, Mel was wearing a hood, though hers was of the ran-slicker variety, a mint-green one that reached halfway down to her knees past her hips. Her bag was waterproof as well, so she seemed quite set for what would no doubt be a very damp ferry ride. Kasimir was there, too, of course, checking to make sure she had absolutely everything and shoving a small bag of what seemed to be snacks into her hands, 'for the trip.'

Ana smiled, glancing up at the quiet man next to her. "He's such a brother sometimes, isn't he?"

Eryk hummed a soft reply, nodding his head in unison as he glanced in Kasimir and Mel's direction. “Understandable all things considered," he murmured softly, his eyes narrowing somewhat, but not in irritation. It seemed almost melancholy, and at the same time, there was what seemed to be a hint of fondness behind his expression. He'd been like that, lately, a little more expressive. He was either unaware of it, or just hadn't seemed to bother to hide it.

“It might be some time before he sees her again," he added, glancing down in Ana's direction. “They at least have the option to call each other," he continued before turning his attention back towards the others. He hadn't bothered to wear a rain coat. Instead, he stood with a plain umbrella that he held over the both of them. It seemed easy considering he was at least a foot taller than Ana.

“Don't forget, you have my number so call me once you beat the next gym Leader. Oh, and update me where you are, then, so I can send you a congratulatory gift!" Drake stated. He had the sense to wear an over sized rain coat, one of those bright yellow ones that crossing guards would wear. If he lacked in other varieties, he'd never told Ana about it. He didn't seem to mind, though, since he was smiling in that goofy kind of way towards Mel.

Mel rolled her eyes, and Ana laughed softly. The expression on her face was soft, too, gently exasperated but also, she thought, maybe a little happy. That made sense—it was sort of... nice, to have people worry about you. Be cheering for your success.

"Thanks, mom," she drawled, but her eyes glittered with mirth, and a moment later her voice softened to match her smile. "No gifts necessary, but I promise to keep you updated. And yeah, Mirmir, you too, I know."

"I didn't say anything."

"Yeah, but you were thinking it."

“No gifts? So does that mean I can't send you a congratulatory card?" Nev stated as she appeared, huffing lightly as if she were out of breath. “Sorry I'm a little late?" she didn't seem too sure, “but I couldn't find my umbrella. Fluffy had it in his little tent for some reason." She huffed in an amused manner before she smiled at Mel.

“And Mama Drake is just worried that you'll be too excited to call him," she added, earning a light glare from Drake.

“I am not that bad... am I?" he asked, pouting slightly. Eryk rolled his eyes softly, but made no effort to comment.

Aidan ambled up behind Nev much more calmly, wearing a sleek black trenchcoat that staved off the rain but left his head bare. His hair was damp already, a little less spiky than usual, but if he cared he gave no sign of it.

Mel grinned. "I won't be," she assured Drake. "And I'm glad you want me to call. We can discuss cards when we get there." Her eyes narrowed with the force of her smile before she turned to the group more generally. "Anyway, boat's leaving soon, so. Hugs, handshakes or something else? Better pick because I'm coming down the line!"

She darted over to Ana first, who willingly opened her arms for a hug, squeaking softly when Mel lifted her off the ground before setting her back down. "Thanks for everything, Ana," she said, adjusting the hood that had started to droop before moving to Eryk next.

Eryk looked momentarily confused, as if he were unsure what to do. He seemed to settle on something, though, and hesitantly opened his arms. He looked a tad awkward, his eyes narrowing slightly, but not in discomfort. Just unsure if he was doing something properly. He seemed a little apologetic when he hugged her, though, slightly stiff and didn't linger more than a couple of seconds. He blinked when he pulled back, his expression smoothing out into what looked like a small smile, but it didn't quite get there.

“Good luck," were the only words he stated before taking a step back. Nev was the next to go in for a hug, and it seemed like she wasn't being too gentle about it. She squeezed Mel a bit before letting go.

“You have my number, too, so call me if you need anything. And I mean anything. If, for whatever reason, it's something you can't ask Kas to get you, I'll gladly do it!" she stated happily enough.

Mel hadn't seemed to mind the awkward hug, and ended it with a pat to Eryk's shoulder and a "thanks, Ryk!" before moving onto Nev. The other woman's enthusiasm earned her a chuckle and a nod, though her smile faded into slight disappointment when Aidan stuck out his hand.

She took it anyway, only for him to surprise her by using it to tug her in for a hug, ruffling her hair with one large hand. "Thought I'd leave you hangin', Rheinallt-the-younger?"

She laughed outright, whacking him on his very solid shoulder before coming to a stop in front of Drake and tilting her head.

"What's it gonna be, leaderman?"

Drake snorted softly as he grinned at Mel. “Judging by the current trend, what do you think it's going to be?" he stated in a rhetorical manner. He opened his arms wide, almost smacking Eryk in the process. He'd taken a step back to avoid Drake's arms, of course, and rolled his eyes.

“Gotta give ya a hug to keep up the trend," Drake continued as he took a step forward, wrapping his arms around Mel. It didn't seem too difficult since they were almost they same height.

Mel grinned, willingly stepping into the circle of his arms and wrapping her own around his back. She seemed to give him a squeeze, and backed off reluctantly, if Ana was reading her body language correctly. "There. Now you're definitely in vogue. Leading edge of the trend, even."

"She can only say that to you because I haven't hugged her yet," Kasimir said, engulfing his sister in his embrace and picking her up off her feet to spin her around a few times. Her laughter came out distorted by the motion, and when he set her down, they both staggered a little with dizziness.

"Kick their asses, Melly."

She gave him a lackadaisical salute. "You got it." Stepping back, she faced the whole group of them. "Thanks for everything, you guys. It's been a great couple of months. Don't forget about me, either, because I'll be back to visit!"

With a final wink and a wave, she was gone, boarding the ferry at a jog just as the plank started to raise for its departure.

Once it was so far away that they could no longer see her waving from the deck, Ana lowered her arm. "Do you guys want to get dry somewhere? Maybe have lunch?"

“Yes! I could totally use a burger right now!" Drake stated, perhaps a little too enthusiastically. Eryk gave him a flat look and shook his head, faintly.

“Is that all you ever eat, Drake? Burgers?" Nev asked a little amused. Drake gave her a large grin and nodded his head.

“I eat other things. Sometimes."

“Maybe we should do lunch where it's more than just burgers," Eryk suggested in a deadpan voice. “Not all of us have the appetite of a two year old."

“Hey, now. I'm at least four in spirit."

Aidan rolled his eyes, Kas grinned, and Ana hid her smile behind a hand. "I think I know the place, then. They even have a kids' menu."

Kasimir laughed, nudging Drake in the ribs with his elbow. "Sounds perfect."

Ana led them to a small diner-style restaurant. It served a lot of traditional 'diner' foods, to be sure, many of them with an island twist. The interior was chrome and vinyl, mostly; an old-fashioned jukebox sat at one end, a row of stools neatly tucked in against the counter, where she climbed up onto one. Kas took the one on her left, and Aidan sat next to him.

Yolanda, the owner and manager of the little place, set menus and water out in front of all of them immediately.

Nev had taken the empty seat near Aidan, which left the seat to Ana's right, open. Eryk immediately settled into it as naturally as he did when he was at home. Drake took the seat next to Eryk, though, and immediately began rummaging through the menu. Eryk seemed to take his time, though, scanning each item as if he were judging them.

“Alright, so what do you suggest from the kids menu, Ana? You selected this place, after all," Drake stated, leaning on his elbow and glancing in her direction. Eryk turned towards him with a flat stare before rolling his eyes.

“This is the part where you're supposed to pretend you know what you're doing, Drake. Can't always leave the decisions to someone else, you know," Nev stated with a light chuckle. Eryk snorted softly as Drake huffed in a feigned hurtful manner.

“But I'm four, remember?"

“Even four year olds have enough self-awareness to know what they want, Bellamy."

"Even and especially when what they want is a pain in everyone else's ass," Kas added knowingly.

Ana grinned, surprised with how easily the group's banter brought it to her face. Pushing down her hood, she pulled her twin plaits out and let them fall forward over her shoulders, unzipping the jacket and throwing it over the back of the stool. They were those ones with kind-of chair backs, which was convenient.

"Well as someone who still sometimes orders off the kids' menu, may I recommend the tropical macaroni and cheese?" She lilted the words with clear amusement. That one was in fact just a smaller version of the same thing on the regular menu, which was an island-style barbecue mac and cheese served with a nice heel of bread.

Aidan hummed. "Maybe my palate's immature or whatever, but that actually sounds kind of good," he observed wryly.

Yolanda returned, taking everyone's orders and running them back to her wife Marisol in the kitchen. Ana sat back a little in her stool. "Cyrilla's going to be back soon, right?" she asked, looking to Eryk for the answer. Her friend had been gone for a week now, and while she didn't really have a good reason to be, aside from general concerns about her family, Ana was a little worried. She hadn't heard anything from her in that time; not even a text message.

Eryk's response to her question was a heavy sigh. He took a slow drink from his water before he glanced in Ana's direction. “Truthfully," he began, keeping his gaze steady with hers, “I don't know. She could be back tomorrow, or it could be another week. She doesn't..." He paused. He stared at Ana for a moment as if he were trying to assess something before he shook his head. “There isn't a proper signal in the area she's at. Even if she wanted to call us or text us how she was faring, she couldn't. I won't know until she's away from the compound and in an area that has proper reception."

He took another long drink from his water after the statement. It was easy to see, though, the way his brows were slightly furrowed that he was as concerned as Ana was about it. He was likely just as worried, if not more, since it'd been a week since they'd last talked.

“Well, I hope she comes back soon. It'd be a shame if she missed Thanksgiving with us," Drake stated from the other side of Eryk, causing Eryk to arch a brow.

Gently, without making it obvious, Ana shifted one hand under the counter, laying one small hand on Eryk's knee. It seemed clear to her that he was worried about Cyrilla, and honestly that made her worry more, too. But of course any anxiety she felt must surely be worse for him; it didn't take a genius to notice how close they were. She'd sort of... wondered about that, for a while, actually.

She didn't draw any attention to the gesture, though, instead just letting her hand rest there softly and turning her attention towards Drake. "It would," she says with a little smile. "I'm planning on making enough food for all of you, by the way, so... please consider yourselves invited to ours for the evening."

For some reason, Kasimir grinned wolfishly. "'Ours,' huh?" he said, his voice a teasing lilt. "Well, well."

Oh arceus. Oh dear, sweet arceus. Ana felt her face heating up, the uncomfortable prickle of a hot blush no doubt staining her cheeks about as pink as her hair. "Oh, I didn't mean—um." Her eyes flicked from Kas, to Eryk, to the counter in front of her; she hastily removed her hand and tucked it back in her lap with the other.

"Ow!" She glanced up; Kasimir was rubbing his arm; Aidan was glaring at him with narrowed eyes. "What was that for?"

"No idea what you're talkin' about," the other man said gruffly.

If Eryk had been bothered by any of the events, from Ana's hand on his knee to Aidan possibly hitting Kas in the arm, he made no show of it. His expression, however, had softened a bit before he shook his head. “You deserved it, if anything," he stated in Kas's direction before turning his attention back towards Ana.

“Oh, that'll be so exciting, though!" Nev stated, taking a drink of her vanilla shake. “If you're doing all of the cooking, I'd be glad to come over and help out with other things like helping Eryk set up. I'm not much of a cook, but you'll be hosting for a total of at least seven people," she continued, leaning over so she could glance in Ana's direction.

“Yeah, Nev's got a point. If you're doing all the cooking, the least we could do is help set up the place and wash the dishes as need be," Drake seemed to volunteer, causing Eryk to roll his eyes a bit. He didn't seem too put off by the offers of help, though, and simply nodded his head.

“Should we at least bring some extra things, like rolls or paper towels and plates?" Nev asked, seemingly excited.

Ana felt herself smile and relax again. "Extra supplies would be welcome," she said with a little nod, "and I'll leave you all in charge of the drinks, how about that?" She didn't know much about those things; it was only about a year ago that she'd reached legal drinking age in Kanto, and she hadn't exactly had much cause to bother about it.

"I have enough dishware, though, so don't worry about plates and things."

"Well," said Kasimir, narrowing his eyes in Aidan's general direction, "that's well and good for Thanksgiving, but what are we doing for boss's birthday?"

"Rheinallt I swear to arceus—"

"Your birthday's this month?" Ana tilted her head at him, and he sighed.

"Yep," Kas said, totally ignoring the warning tone. "November 17th, right there in his personnel file."

"Which is classified." Aidan grumbled the words; Ana thought he might actually be... sulking, a little bit?

"Oh please. I've read everyone's. I'm the guy who classifies things so other people can't read them, remember?"

Nev seemed to inhale her drink wrong, and choked a little bit. “Why didn't you tell me your birthday was coming up, soon?!" she stated, turning to glance in Aidan's direction.

“He probably didn't want anyone to know," Eryk stated off-handedly.

“But who doesn't want their friends to know each other's birthdays?" Drake chimed in, looking almost offended by the statement.

“Klein, for starters."

“Well, still, it's before Thanksgiving so we should probably do something. It could be just the seven of us if Cy's back before then. And we could just make it something small and not too big since... well, since you don't like those kinds of things," Nev stated as she took another drink of her shake.

Aidan sighed. "All right, I'll make you idiots a deal. We'll go to the arcade on my birthday. I'll even let you do cake and shit if you want to. But that's it, and I'm paying to rent the place out so we don't have to deal with crowds. It's that or nothing, so choose carefully."

Ana smiled. It was just like him to disguise courtesy as gruffness. Renting the place out was no doubt to make the idea more comfortable for those like herself and Eryk, who didn't do well in large crowds anyway, and surely having most of it set up that way would prevent Nev from going overboard with preparations, while still letting her do some of the planning things she'd no doubt want to, like cake and such.

"I'm in," she said immediately.

"And I'm bringing the booze. Drunk go-karting sounds like fun."

“If it's going to be just the seven of us, then sure. Why the hell not," Eryk stated, finishing off his water. Nev looked to be on the verge of pouting before she sighed softly and shook her head.

“Alright, fine. But I am getting you something. I promise it'll only be one thing, and it won't be something useless," Nev stated, her brows still furrowed slightly. Drake snickered softly and shook his head.

“I'm just looking forward to kicking the old man's ass at some of the games," he stated, grinning in Aidan's direction.

Aidan gave him a flat look. "Kid, I know I'm old, but I haven't forgotten who beat whose ass at Heavy Octillery last time. Also, I'm a much better driver than any of you and will leave your asses in my dust at drunk go-karting." He picked up his drink, setting it back down a moment later with an emphatic thud.

"He's got you there," Ana said to Drake, having borne witness to the Heavy Octillery massacre of a couple months ago.

"Ryk's got us all at drunk darts, though. You should see it, Ana," Kas put in, arching an eyebrow and smirking over the rim of his glass at Eryk. "We'll have to find him a chance to show off his ninja skills."

"Ninja...?" Ana blinked. She knew, of course, that the Koga had historically been a ninja family, but she was a little surprised to hear it apparently carried over to modern day, unless Kas was just being facetious.

“Yeah, Kas is not wrong. You should have seen him that night," Drake chimed in, agreeing with Kas's statement.

Eryk, however, arched an eyebrow in Aidan's direction. “I think that's a challenge I hear. You think you could beat me in drunk go-karting?" Eryk stated, almost in a serious tone. “You're on... boss."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



November 15th
Cinnabar Pier - Mid-Afternoon - Overcast
Eryk Nero


Noctis had been restless the past couple of days. Eryk didn't blame the zoroark; he missed his trainer, and Eryk missed his friend. He'd never thought he'd actually miss someone like that, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't. As expected, Cyrilla had not called once during the time she was at the compound. Eryk could only speculate what was happening, and it made something in his jaw tighten uncomfortably so. When she had finally called, it was to tell him what time and day she would be arriving back on Cinnabar.

Today.

She was coming back today, and he was waiting patiently for the boat to arrive. He'd invited Kasimir along mostly because Kas had Diva and Siri. From his understanding, both pokémon had done rather well with Kas. More-so than Ryk expected them to, really. It was not in doubt of Kas's abilities as a trainer, but that Diva and Siri could be a little much for most people. Diva lived up to her name, and he knew that being separated from Cyrilla for too long caused the lycanroc anxiety. They were close as far as pokémon and trainer went, and Ryk knew it was because Diva was Cyrilla's first pokémon. He had given her the lycanroc when she'd been just a rockruff, pulled from some illegal fighting ring, before the clan had forced Cyrilla to choose a proper starter.

A short huff pulled Ryk's attention towards said zoroark, and held his gaze. Noctis had, seemingly, found the thought funny. Even the pokémon had found the notion of the clan's thought process, stupid. Shaking his head, Ryk turned his attention towards Kas. “Did everything go well?" he asked, mostly to kill time. The boat wasn't due to arrive for another few minutes, and he couldn't see it on the horizon, yet.

Both Diva and Siri were out of their pokéballs. The noibat was on Kasimir's shoulder, hanging onto his head, whereas the lycanroc was near his feet. He turned his attention slightly towards Eryk at the question, causing the pokémon there to shift with him, then shrugged a little. "We all got along fine," he said with a bit of a smile, rubbing behind one of Diva's ears. "But we missed her." He arched an eyebrow, as if expecting some kind of comment on his phrasing.

Eryk couldn't understand why, though. It wasn't as if Eryk found anything wrong with the statement. It simply was, and it was how Kas felt. He was certain almost everyone felt that way. “I did, too," he replied with a light shrug of his shoulders. “But she's returning today, and will not be going back to the compound any time soon." Eryk would make sure of it, this time. He hated that he couldn't go with her, to ensure that her parents didn't do something they would regret. But Katia had made that impossible. He had to make sure she wouldn't ruin anything, and she hadn't.

He'd found it odd, at the time. She was trying to get information from Kas and Aidan, he knew that. Katia hadn't learned anything, though, from what Kas had told him. She had left, thankfully, back to the compound two days ago. He hadn't realized how stressed and tensed he'd been until after Katia had left. Now that she was gone, he could focus back on his life.

His life.

The thought caught him off guard for a second, before he shook his head. “I just..." he paused, pursing his lips together, “hope she's still in one piece." And he meant that in a literal kind of way. He knew what his family was capable of.

"She will be." Kas gave no indication as to where his confidence came from, but he definitely sounded confident. At least as much as he did when someone asked him a technology question, or something else he was especially good at. Something he knew well. "It'll be nice to have her around again. I'm tired of my own cooking." It was obviously a joke, a way of making the mood a little lighter, rather than anything especially serious.

Eryk huffed softly in an amused manner. “You could always just come to Ana's. She would be more than willing to cook for you, too," he stated before the sound of the boat's horn called his attention. He hadn't realized he'd missed its arrival. It was docking, and a few minutes later, people were unloading. He scanned the crowd, looking for the head of familiar white hair, and frowned when he didn't see it. He blinked to clear his vision, and frowned slightly when he finally saw her, only... she looked slightly different.

From the distance, it looked like her hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, however; she was smiling in his direction. It was a smile Eryk hadn't seen in almost a decade, and it made him second guess whether or not it was actually Cyrilla he was looking at.

“Ryk!" she nearly shouted, running up to him as fast as she could through the crowd. She nearly toppled him over when she threw her arms around him, and hugged him as if her life depended on it. Up close, he could see that the length of her hair was gone. It was much shorter, now, a little past her chin, and she was still smiling when she glanced up at him. Her hug was a little awkward, though, and when she pulled back from the hug, he could see why. From her hand down to her wrist, it was wrapped in what looked to be a black hand wrap. Upon closer inspection, he could tell it was a cast of some sort. Was her hand broken?

“I'm back," she stated, pulling Eryk from his thoughts. She glanced in Kas's direction, and that same smile made its way back to her face. She opened her arms to wrap them around both Kas and Diva as best as she could, it seemed. “Oh, I missed my favorite people," she spoke, sounding a little muffled against Kas. Eryk was still at a loss for words. Who was this person who looked like his old friend?

Kas laughed a little, making his best attempt to return the hug while still minding her arm, it seemed. His expression flickered when he realized what the cast was, and the look he shot Eryk over Cyrilla's head was dark in a way Kas never usually was, but it was gone a moment later. "And look at you!" he declared, using one hand to pet the much-abbreviated length of her hair. "This is cute. And you're still acting like my friend and everything. Something good must've happened?"

Stepping back a little, he took Siri carefully from his shoulder and set her back on Cyrilla's. "There we go; that's even better. Everyone back where they belong, hm?"

She laughed.

It wasn't the one that was her typical forced kind, or one that was the result of when she was causing mischief. It was a laugh Eryk hadn't truly heard in years. She removed Siri from her perch, and twirled with the noibat in her arms, causing Siri to chirp happily. Diva, however, huffed a soft whine before sitting next to Kas.

“And I missed my favorite girls, too. That includes you, Noct," Cyrilla stated, shooting the zoroark a bright grin. Noctis huffed and rolled his eyes, sitting next to Eryk. He didn't seem too enthused about sharing in the revelry, it seemed, but Eryk was still a little confused. “And you are correct, Kasimir Rheinallt. Something good did happen," Cy continued, placing Siri back on her shoulder.

“What do you mean he's correct? What good could have come from going to the compound that you'd come back with a broken hand," Eryk interjected, causing her to turn her attention back towards him. She blinked before she raised the hand he'd mentioned, a smile still plastered on her face.

“Oh, this? It's not what you think, Ryk. Cyrilla Niav is no more," she stated it as if a weight had finally been lifted off of her shoulders. “The woman who stands before you, now is Cyrilla. I haven't quite thought of a new surname, yet. I was thinking..." she trailed off, glancing in Kas's direction with a large smile on her face, “Of taking one of my best friends' last names. What do you think, Kas? Do you think I could join the Rheinallt family? Or should I ask Ana to be part of the Ashers?"

She was what? No longer Niav? Eryk furrowed his brows in her direction, his eyes narrowing slightly. “I disowned the family," she seemed to clarify, and all at once, it made sense to Eryk why she'd said what she did. It still didn't explain why her hand was broken.

Kas's reaction was rather different. Dispensing for a moment with the idea of including anyone else in the gesture, he swept Cyrilla up into a hug, this one rather more emphatic than the last, though he was still careful to work around the injury. He seemed to be chuckling, but if so the sound was muffled a bit against her neck and shoulder where he'd lifted her clear off the pier. "You're crazy," he said, just barely loud enough that Eryk could hear, though it wasn't clear he was meant to. "I'm so proud of you."

Eryk allowed a ghost of a smile to cross his face and shook his head. Kas wasn't the only one who was proud of her. It must have taken a lot for her to disown the family; Ryk knew it wasn't going to be an easy process, but she looked so carefree at the moment. Cyrilla laughed at Kasimir's actions, though, and pat his shoulders.

“I know I'm crazy, but thanks, Snorlax. You had a lot to do with it," she stated, chuckling lightly. Once she was set down, she turned to face Eryk with the smile dimming just a bit. “It's not quite official, though. You know they won't make it easy, but..." she trailed off, glancing down towards Diva who had walked up to lean on Cy's legs. She rubbed the large tuff of fur around Diva's head before glancing back towards Eryk. “I'm not going to make it easy for her. Now that I'm leaving the family, Marah's going to try even harder to get our engagement anulled."

Eryk had momentarily forgotten about that. “Cyrilla... in order for you to be completely free of the family, you know we have to," he spoke in a much softer tone than he was used to speaking in. She furrowed her brows at him as her eyes narrowed slightly.

We don't have to do a damn thing, Ryk. Until I can find a way to get you out, too, our engagement still stands. And until I get everything where it needs to be, you're still stuck with me. Once this mission is over, I'm leaving Team Rocket. We're leaving Team Rocket," she stated through narrowed eyes. Eryk sighed heavily, his shoulders slumping slightly.

“It's easier said than done, Cy. You know that better than anyone," he replied simply, shaking his head.

“Yeah, well, you know I've always been stubborn, too," she stated, reaching out towards Eryk's hand and grasping it gently. She squeezed it softly before releasing it, giving him a firm look before reaching up to rub Siri's ear. Anyway, what have I missed since I've been gone?" she asked, glancing back in Kas's direction.

Kas offered no comment on Cyrilla's abrupt reversal of career plans, sliding his hands into his pockets and humming quietly instead. "Well, let's see," he said, acting as if he were giving it great thought. "Katia's gone, thank arceus. Mel's off to Viridian. We're doing boss's birthday at the arcade in two days, there was a really big hurricane that we caught the edge of a week ago or so, and... am I missing anything, Ryk?"

Before Ryk could respond, he didn't think there was anything that was missed, Cyrilla pursed her lips together and spoke, “Wait, I missed Melly's departure? Man... I wanted to be here when she left." Eryk huffed slightly before rolling his eyes. It was a relief that Katia wasn't here any longer; no doubt she'd have some words now that Cyrilla was leaving the family.

“And Aidan's birthday this month? Oh, cool. So we get to celebrate Thanksgiving and a birthday," Cyrilla stated with a large grin. Eryk blinked, being momentarily reminded that there was something else that she had missed.

“Ana has invited everyone to our place for Thanksgiving," he stated, earning a look from Cy. Her brow was arched, and the mischievous smile on her face was hard to miss. Diva rolled her eyes, reaching for her trainer's hand and pulling at it.

“I know, Diva, I know. I won't tease him about it, but that's great. Obviously I'll be there," she stated, turning to smile knowingly at Ryk. What that was about, he wasn't too sure. He simply shook his head and turned so that he could grab her bag from the floor where she'd dropped it to hug him.

“Let's go get lunch, then. I'm starved, and I wanna be full before I go see everyone," she stated, causing Eryk to shake his head.

“I need to get back to the shelter. I told Ana I was picking you up, and that was it," he stated, furrowing his brows together. He wouldn't have minded going to get lunch with her, but he had other things he needed to do, things at the shelter that needed his attention. Cyrilla huffed a short laugh, though, and turned to Kas.

“What do you think, Kas? Should we go get lunch or Ana's, or the two of us can go to Jo's and catch up?" she asked with a grin. Eating lunch at Ana's wouldn't be a bad thing, Eryk supposed. They could all catch up that way. All he would have to do was have Cyrilla text or call Ana and see.

Kas pondered this for all of a second before he shrugged. "Why don't we head to Ana's? I'm sure she's missed you, too."

“To Ana's it is! I wanna ask her about the name thing, too. I've got two best friends, after all," she stated, lifting Siri from her perch on her shoulder and holding her in her hands. Noctis rolled his eyes, but glanced up at Eryk.

“Sure, Cy, let's go get you caught up with Ana." This was nice, somehow, to Eryk. Despite the clouds in the sky threatening rain, Eryk thought it was turning into a pleasant day.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Anastasia Asher
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


November 17th
Cinnabar Arcade - Evening - Rain
Aidan Klein


Sometimes, life was good.

At just the moment, sitting around a large table laden with pizza, breadsticks and booze, with... pretty much the only friends he'd ever had, Aidan had to say it was pretty good. Even the fact that it was his birthday wasn't getting in the way.

Nia—Cyrilla seemed to be in high spirits, despite the wrist injury that had to have been the doing of some relative or another; in fact he didn't think he'd ever seen her look this happy. Apparently she was in search of a last name to replace her own, since she'd disowned her family. He had a thought about that, but now didn't really seem like the time, and he was content to wait.

"All right, I'm pretty sure I heard something about drunk go-karting when we were planning this, so let's get to work on the 'drunk' part!" Rheinallt grabbed another half-dozen ciders from under the table and stuck them on the surface, clearly in expectation of the others imbibing.

Aidan sure didn't mind, taking one for himself and passing another to Doc next to him.

She took it, but didn't immediately open it, still laughing at Rheinallt's statement. “While that sounds like fun, you can count me out. I don't think it'd be a good idea for me to get drunk in the first place," Doc stated, chuckling lightly. Cyrilla took the one of the cans, though, snickering softly before arching a brow in Doc's direction.

“That's only because you get giddy and really happy," she replied, causing Doc to snort unceremoniously. She didn't seem to deny it, though, and simply took a drink of water from her cup. The tips of her ears were turning slightly pink, though.

“Drunk or not, I'd still kick all of your asses," Nero muttered as he cracked a can open. He took a drink from it, but it looked more like he was chugging it. “But it's him," he pointed towards Aidan, “who thinks he has a chance of winning."

Aidan narrowed his eyes at this, lifting the index finger currently wrapped around his can and using it to point at his friend. "Watch it. If you drive as bad as you trash talk you're screwed. Hell, you're screwed if your driving's great, because mine's better. This isn't darts, ninja kid."

Rheinallt burst out laughing, no doubt recalling exactly that incident, and nudged Drake in the ribs. "You gonna try redeeming yourself for that one, O mighty leader?"

Drake snorted into his drink, spitting some of it out in the process before pursing his lips in Rheinallt's direction. “I will not, thank you. The only thing I'm good at is being a gym leader, I'll have you know. My driving is good, but that's it. The island is too small to actually have proper roads and cars, after all," Drake stated as he chuckled softly.

“So that means you're still going to try, right? I'd join, but... well, I probably won't be able to steer very well, so Kas, you're going to have to redeem my name for me!" Cyrilla said, poking Rheinallt's shoulder with her free hand. Nero, however, kept his gaze on Aidan, his eyes narrowing slightly with a hint of a smirk forming on his face.

“You haven't seen my driving. How do you know it's not better than yours?" Nero stated, reaching over to grab another drink. Doc snickered and shook her head.

“You guys should probably be drinking something heavier if you're trying to get drunk, quick for drunk-karting," she stated, finally opening the cider in her hand. “And what about you, Ana. Are you going to join in on their festivities?" Doc asked, glancing in Ana's direction.

Ana, who'd been quite content to grin and shake her head at the others for the most part thus far, blinked when she was queried. "Um... I guess I could. I'm not really used to driving anything carlike though. I guess we'll see how it goes." She was already faintly red in the face; the two ciders she'd had so far no doubt hit her very differently from what they did to someone like Nero or Aidan himself. She was freaking tiny.

With a sigh, Rheinallt reached under his seat and produced a handle of vodka. The cheap kind. "Okay so this tastes like garbage, but if we split it three ways even the likes of us will get properly soused," he explained.

Shrugging, Aidan pulled one of the red plastic cups from the upside-down stack of them near an empty pizza box and held it towards the other man. "Hit me."

Nero snorted softly before grabbing a couple of red cups and holding them out towards Rheinallt. “Fill them both up," he stated, staring at Rheinallt. Doc chuckled lightly, before shaking her head.

“This will be a disaster," Cyrilla stated with a light grin, nudging her drink in Doc's direction. “If Ana is going to participate, you should, too. I mean, it wouldn't be fair if Ana's the only girl driving," she stated, causing Doc to blink in confusion. She must have figured something out, though, and made a slight 'oh' with her mouth.

“That is true; it would be unfair if Ana was the only one racing against the boys," Doc stated as she smiled in Ana's direction. “I can join too, but I'm not going to be drinking more than this. I'm bad enough at driving," she murmured into her drink. Drake, however, laughed, and pat Doc lightly on the shoulder.

“Me too, Nev. Me too."

'Disaster' might yet prove to be the right word. They all took another twenty minutes or so to get well and truly gone, and then made their way to the go-karts, each a different color and parked neatly in a corral area not far from the starting line. The staff had mostly left the group of them alone, as Aidan had requested—he was effectively paying them not to work, so he doubted any of them had an issue with it.

He chose a bright red vehicle for himself, only struggling a little bit to fit his legs into the space provided.

"I'm... not sure this is gonna work," Rheinallt said, slurring a little. Aidan chanced a glance at him and broke into a fit of what amounted to loud, somewhat gravelly chuckling. Rheinallt's legs were bent at a ridiculous angle, his knees easily higher than the sides of the kart. He was flexible enough for it, but it looked ridiculous.

Nero snorted at Rheinallt, containing what seemed to be his own fit of laughter. There was a very subtle smirk on his face, though, as he arched a brow in Rheinallt's direction. Doc seemed to find it as hilarious as it looked, snorting a few times as she held a hand up to her face. She didn't seem to have much trouble getting into her kart, a pale blue colored one, as Nero took an orange colored kart.

“Oh my arceus, Kas. You look ridiculous, like an octillery who can't quite fit in its bottle," Cyrilla stated once she seemed to get her laughter contained. “If it's easier for you, you can come spectate with me and leave the other dorks to their racing," she offered, snickering softly at Rheinallt.

“Hey, now, I know I'm a dork, but there's no need to call us out on it," Drake stated as he buckled his seat belt. He'd chosen a purple one that looked more blue than anything.

"You know, normally I'd say I should do this anyway," Rheinallt said, wagging his legs as though trying to take flight in the kart. "But while I might be drunk enough that this feels fine now, I think I'd regret it tomorrow." He tried to lever himself out, but fell back; he didn't seem to be stuck so much as drunk, though.

Ana, who was the only person not yet in her own kart, laughed softly, but made her way over to help him all the same. He stuck a hand out with a pout, and she gripped it with both of hers, pulling backwards until he was standing, likely more on his own power than due to her help. She was quite thin. Sometimes Aidan actually worried about that, but there could be loads of reasons for it, and none of them were his business to talk about.

With Rheinallt safely back up to the spectator's area, Ana climbed into the kart he'd been using, and all of them got themselves to the starting line. The lights along the side ticked down, and as soon as the green one flashed, Aidan eased his foot onto the gas, accelerating quickly but steadily, without any lurching.

There was a spurting sound behind Aidan, though. “Are you kidding me!?" Drake shouted. It seemed like his kart wasn't moving. Nero, however, had taken off after Aidan had, his kart swerving slightly.

“Go, boss-man! Kick Ryk's ass!" Cyrilla shouted, earning a loud fit of giggles from Doc who seemed to be going slightly slower than what was called for on the track. Nero, however, furrowed his brows, and seemed to nearly stomp on the gas pedal, causing his kart to swerve dangerously close to Aidan's.

Well if that was how it was going to be, there was a reason these things had bumpers on them. Aidan steered slightly into Nero's kart, so the collision pushed them apart again, and used it to propel himself closer to the inside of the track. He could sense someone behind him, following just slightly to the outside, but he wasn't quite sure who it was, and anyway the important thing was driving as fast and efficiently as he could, at least until he had to worry about lapping people.

He passed the finish line first on the first lap, blowing past Drake, who was still having trouble getting his kart to move. A quick glance revealed the problem. "Kid, that's the brake. Hit the other one!"

Up with the spectators, Rheinallt lost it at this, erupting into a gale of laughter and leaning against Cyrilla's shoulder for support, though mostly in an amusing rather than serious manner. They flashed by, though, and he refocused his attention on the track.

Drake still seemed to be having trouble getting out of the starting line area. Either he still wasn't pushing the gas pedal, or he was pressing on both the gas and the brake. The latter seemed more likely as the kart seemed to rev and sputter, however; Nero came from behind Aidan, and scraped his kart against Aidan's. He swerved slightly, though, and pulled around to Aidan's left.

Nero was between glaring at Aidan, and keeping his eyes on the road. Doc was still a lap behind, driving fast enough that she wasn't impeding their race, but slow enough that she seemed to be watching the spectacle that Nero was making. She found it amusing if the way she was smiling was anything to go by.

Aidan was honestly having difficulty not laughing himself, even when he was jerked slightly to the side by the hit. He corrected quickly, slowed drunk reflexes compensated for by ample muscle memory, and then he was back at it.

He was still in the lead, but Nero was gaining on the outside, and Ana still serenely cruising on his tail. At this point it was essentially a three-way contest, because the other two were way too far behind to catch up.

Drake still seemed stuck at the starting point. He seemed to be confused as to why he couldn't get his kart to move, but it was obvious that he hadn't figured out to release the brake. “Drake, remove your left foot. You're using both feet; you only need to use one for the gas!" Cyrilla shouted between laughs. She seemed to be finding the situation as amusing as Doc and the others were, however; Drake seemed to realize his mistake and did as he was told.

The resulting action was his kart's sudden jerk forward, clipping Nero's just as he rounded the corner which caused Nero to lose control of his kart. Nero swerved, trying to regain control, it seemed, but it didn't end well. He rammed Aidan's kart rather harshly, a loud 'oof' coming from either Doc or one of the other spectators.

There wasn't any quick recovery from that, and the two of them careened into the wall. Ana swerved neatly around them immediately, though, picking up speed and making the remaining half a lap unopposed. By the time Aidan and Nero were able to get back on track, she'd already passed the finish line, the clear winner.

Aidan had to console himself with the fact that he managed second to Nero's third. Doc made fourth, of course, leaving Drake with the dead last he deserved.

Still, he had to admit he was still chuckling as he leveraged his way out of the kart in the parking bay, heading back up to the main level while shaking his head. "I think we're gonna need more supplies to celebrate the trouncing we just got," he said, ruffling Ana's pale pink hair where she sat. She smiled up at him. "I need about one extra hand, so to make sure we're not wasting any, how would you feel about helping, Cyrilla?"

Cyrilla snorted softly, still trying to contain her laughter, it seemed as she nodded her head in Aidan's direction. “Sure, I wouldn't mind helping," she finally stated as she glanced in Nero's direction. He was half glaring at Drake, but there was a subtle smile on his face which seemed to suggest he wasn't actually upset.

“I can't believe I ran into Eryk. Sorry about that," Drake stated as he huffed lightly. Nero rolled his eyes but didn't say anything, instead, turning his attention towards Ana.

“Congratulations on your win, Ana," he stated, perhaps to ignore Drake for the moment. Doc seemed to be chuckling lightly, though, and laid a hand on Ana's shoulder.

“Congrats! It goes to show that out of those two," she pointed towards Aidan and Nero, “you're the ace in the... something. I forgot how that saying goes." Doc shook her head at herself, it seemed, as she continued to chuckle.

The sound of her response was lost; Cyrilla and Aidan had gotten far enough away that Ana's quiet tones were mostly inaudible. "Buncha weirdoes," Aidan groused, not actually upset at all. There were more things stored in the fridge behind the arcade's bar; he grabbed a six-pack and handed it to her, digging through the rest in search of something that seemed good.

"Heard you gave the old 'fuck you' to the family," he said conversationally. "Bet that shocked them."

Cyrilla snorted unceremoniously as she nodded her head. “It did, actually. I don't think they were expecting that. I didn't really expect it either, it's just..." she trailed off, her smile dimming down into something a little more sober. Her eyes went to her wrist before she shook her head and smiled again.

“Well, I wish I had done it sooner. The thing is, even though I might have given them both the literal and metaphorical finger," she began again, shifting the six-pack in her hand, “I know it's not going to be easy. Just because I said it doesn't mean that I'm completely gone or free from them. As an adult, there's not much that can be done about the family if they decide they want to retaliate somehow. And I know they will."

She sighed softly, though before she continued, glancing towards Aidan through slightly narrowed eyes. “It's kind of the reason why I'm in the market for a new surname, really. If I no longer had a connection to them via name, then it would be easier to file something, legally, against them. I..." she paused, glancing back in the direction where the others were, “I'm still, techincally engaged to Ryk, but... I don't want his last name. You... you were privy to some of the things about our family because of Katia, right?" she asked, arching a brow at him.

"Enough to know why you want nothing to do with the fuckers," he said, shaking his head. Grabbing a bottle of liquor and the large tray with the cake on it Doc had picked out, he nudged the fridge door shut with his hip.

"You could have mine, you know. If you wanted it. Gramps would've loved you, so I think he'd be glad I offered." He headed for the door, not really pausing to assess her reaction to the offer. Weirdly, he was a bit... nervous about making it. He didn't want her to feel any pressure, which was why he'd made sure to do it away from everyone else, but he also didn't want her to take it the wrong way.

It could have implications he didn't mean, after all. But he did think it'd keep her a little safer than most names would, considering how close he was to the boss, and how close messing with her would now be to messing with him. And messing with him was a lot like messing with Gregorovich, which was pretty much the one thing even the Koga would hesitate to do. But hell, if she wanted Rheinallt's or Ana's instead, he'd never object. He just figured she'd be worried about making them targets if she did.

“You'd... you'd do that for me?" she called out softly behind him. She hadn't moved from her spot, it seemed, and the way her voice was a bit shaky, indicated that she was taken aback by the offer. “You'd let me have your name?" she continued, a little hesitant. She finally took a step forward and moved so that she was beside him, staring up at him as if to assess what he'd said was genuine.

“I... thanks, Aidan. That... that means..." she paused, a soft hiccup escaping her before she wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. “So... does that mean I can be little sister Klein?" she asked, arching a brow up at him.

He'd turned back when she spoke; checking to make sure the tone was really what he thought it might be and not offense. The last bit, though, made him snort softly. It was actually more or less the correct interpretation, since he definitely wasn't proposing. "Hmm," he said, pretending to consider it. "Maybe we start you off at little cousin and see what happens." He cracked a smile, though, so she knew he was kidding. It felt kind of weird on his face, but that was okay.

She smiled at him in return, and huffed slightly. “Yeah, well either way, I'm your relative now, so all the details can be hashed out later. Let's go celebrate Big Brother Aidan's birthday," she stated happily enough as she walked in front of him. “You have a lot of gifts to open, after all," she added, nodding her head in the direction of the small table where everyone had dropped off their gifts.

He rolls his eyes at the title, but nods anyway. "Guess I do."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



November 20th
Cinnabar Ocean - Morning - Clear
Eryk Nero


Eryk grumbled slightly to himself, rubbing at his eyes as he tried to adjust them to the misty morning. Kas, for some reason, convinced Aidan, himself, and Drake to go fishing at arceus-knows time in the morning. While he wasn't adverse to the thought, he had other things on his mind. Other things that he was trying to understand because they didn't make sense to him. Cyrilla had told him yesterday that Aidan had offered to give her his name, and that she was going to accept it.

So, what was the entire spiel about staying engaged to him so that the family couldn't force Katia on him? He pulled in a deep breath and shook his head. No matter how he looked at it, all evidence pointed to Cyrilla taking Aidan's name through a marriage of some sort. He wasn't entirely sure why that bothered him. He should be happy that she's finally getting out of the family. She would still be connected to Team Rocket, though, which he knew was something she didn't want.

“You know, you're going to scare away all the pokémon with a scowl like that. They can practically hear it with the way it seems to be yelling off your face, Ryk," Drake stated with a light yawn. He had a fishing pole in his hand though, and seemed more awake than Eryk was.

“Shut up, it's too early for this," was the only reply Eryk gave him.

Aidan, on his other side, didn't seem to have one, and had barely adjusted his wardrobe to account for today's plans. He wore black compression pants underneath looser shorts, and a windbreaker over his shirt. There were sunglasses perched on his head, the same kind he'd once used to demonstrate a point about observation to Eryk and Solomon, but they wouldn't be necessary yet, if they were at all. At the moment, he was grumbling to himself as he flicked his lighter, which didn't seem to want to work in the damp air.

Finally, he struck it right, holding the flame up to the end of his cigarette before pocketing it again. "Pretty sure that's Rheinallt's boat," he said, jerking his chin towards one of the three anchored in front of them.

It was in good condition, mostly painted a sleek dark green, with the deck and so on in darker wood. The upholstery was largely black; all of this set it apart from the paler color schemes of most of the other boats in the area. On the side of the prow was painted the word 'Rayquaza,' apparently the vessel's name.

“That's a lot of green," Drake stated off-handedly as he made his way towards the boat. Eryk rolled his eyes, but followed after him, sparing a glance in Aidan's direction. “He said he was going to meet us here, right? We're..." Drake trailed off to look at his watch, “five minutes early but I don't think that would be a problem for Kas, right?" Eryk scoffed slightly.

“He likes his sleep more than anything," which made this fishing trip rather strange to Ryk. He glanced towards the boat, though, and pursed his lips together. “Hopefully he has spare rods. I didn't bring one," even though he knew they would be fishing.

They didn't get much closer before both questions were answered; Rheinallt appearing from belowdeck with several fishing rods and a large tackle box. Despite the season, he wore board shorts and a hoodie, his feet bare. "Hey guys," he said sleepily. "Climb aboard."

Lani, his vaporeon, was already relaxing on the deck, her long tail draped over the size of the boat. It didn't reach the water, but waved back and forth in lazy arcs. She lifted her head as the others approached, flicking a finned ear at them, before resettling her head on her forepaws.

"Always wondered what you spent your salary on," Aidan mused. "Kinda figured it was tech stuff."

Kas laughed. "It is, mostly. I bought the Rayquaza years ago. Pretty much rebuilt her from the inside out. It was my project for a while. There's a fair amount of nav tech aboard, but I actually prefer most of my boating analog."

Eryk supposed it was nice to have something like that to work on. Most of his salary just went into his savings. The only thing he spent his money on were the occasional bills that he had to pay, and to help Ana out where she needed it. Drake, however, chuckled lightly and shook his head.

“That and you have your own professional seafarer with Lani," he stated, tipping his head in the vaporeon's direction. Eryk rolled his eyes slightly.

“You have a gyarados," Eryk said simply, watching as Drake shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, but he's an idiot. He wouldn't know his left from his right," he replied, glancing in Kas's direction. “Why'd you name it Rayquaza, though? That's one of Hoenn's weather deities, isn't it?"

Kas nodded. "Yeah, but the Islands are really close to Hoenn. There's a lot of stories about them where I'm from, especially rayquaza." He worked as he spoke, pulling the boarding plank up and setting it aside, then untying the boat from the dock. "When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time out on the ocean, you know? And I really liked it when it stormed. There's nothing like it. It's dangerous, but if you know what you're doing, it's also exhilarating. And that's what the old stories say rayquaza does: brings the storms to the sea."

He lifted one of his sleeves, exposing the bottom half of his winding, full-arm tattoo. "Kind of a running theme, with yours truly."

"It's nice ink," Aidan remarked. "You have a lot of them?"

"A few." Kas shrugged and started the boat, the engine roaring to life beneath the, then settling into a smooth hum as he backed them out of the docking area. "I can't stand the look of just a bunch of random shit though, so I like to make sure they're cohesive."

Drake visibly shuddered when Kas mentioned he had a few tattoos. “I don't know how you could stand to sit and be prodded for so long. They must have taken a few hours and sessions just to complete, especially with how intricate some of them seem," he stated, causing Eryk to raise a brow.

“Have you tried getting a tattoo?" he asked, watching as Drake paled somewhat.

“Yes," Drake stated, holding out his hand in the process. He pointed to a small dot on the junction of where his thumb and forefinger were connected. “That was my first and last attempt at getting a tattoo," he explained, causing Ryk to scoff lightly.

“What were you trying to get that was so small?" Ryk asked, arching a brow at Drake who pursed his lips together.

“I just wanted a pokéball. I was fifteen at the time, alright. Young and stupid."

“Still stupid, just not as young," Eryk retorted.

Kas laughed; even Aidan cracked a smile.

"Okay, I gotta know though, boss. Why don't you have any? They'd totally fit that biker aesthetic you have going on most of the time."

Aidan snorted. "I was, actually, in a biker gang," he said. "Long time ago. And I did have the tattoos. I got them removed though, when I left that all behind. They can do a lot of impressive shit with lasers these days." He shrugged. "Mine weren't art like yours. Not really. No point keeping them."

Eryk supposed he could understand that. Wanting to remove something from his past that was no longer wanted. Drake huffed lightly and nodded as if he were agreeing with Aidan. “What about you, Ryk? Why don't you have tattoos?" he asked, causing Ryk to arch a brow.

He simply shrugged. “No room to put one even if I did," he replied non-chalantly, pointing to the scars on his face. He was wearing a long-sleeved button up shirt, and rolled up his sleeves to clarify. His entire body was scarred, and even if he did want to get a tattoo, they would only draw attention to the scars. It'd be pointless to get one.

“Huh, well, I'm sure there are ways to get one if you really wanted one," Drake stated as he glance din Kas's direction. “How far are we heading out?" he asked. There was a hint of nervousness in his voice, though, that Eryk narrowed his eyes slightly.

“Afraid you'll get sea-sick?" he asked, as Drake furrowed his brows.

“No... not necessarily. There are just... lapras way out and I'd rather not encounter them if it can be helped," was Drake's response.

"Wait, you're afraid of lapras?" Kas looked incredulous. "They're like the gentlest pokémon ever! I've met jigglypuffs more dangerous than a lapras." He did draw the boat to a stop though, but it seemed to be in response to a reading from one of his navigational devices rather than because of Drake's unease.

Removing the key from the boat, he draped the lanyard it was on around his neck, picking up the rods and distributing one each to Aidan and Eryk. They seemed to be some kind of super rod, just from the look of them. His own looked slightly better still.

"You can go for a swim if you want, but watch the hooks," he advised Lani. She made a soft trilling noise and slipped off the boat into the ocean.

“You don't understand, Kas. They are terrifying," Drake replied, frowning in Kas's direction. He turned towards Aidan, though, lips still pursed as he seemed to muse something over. “If he stays far... far away, I'm not going to be the reason Skiff can't enjoy a swim, either." Eryk rolled his eyes, but felt something in his chest, rumble lightly. He was chuckling at the scene.

“They're not that bad, Drake," he stated, earning a flat look.

“Yeah, well when one is chasing you when you were five years old, you'd be singing a different tune."

“I wouldn't be singing at all." Drake narrowed his eyes at Eryk who merely shrugged. “Why do we have to be fishing, though? Wasn't there something else we could have done?" he asked, glancing in Kas's direction. They could have gone to Marna's, if anything.

With a nod to Drake, Aidan gave his net ball a toss into the water. Skiff appeared a moment later. He was pretty large for a lapras, which probably wasn't helping Drake's anxiety any, but at a word from Aidan he meandered away from the boat, drifting lazily along in the water and making no attempt to remain especially close to them.

"Ryk, fishing is a classic male bonding activity," Kas said, grinning broadly enough that even Eryk could tell he was joking. "We're supposed to sit around, complain about things, especially the women in our lives, and drink shitty beer. And you super white people are also supposed to get sunburn, while I will tan to a toastier brown."

"That's bullshit," Aidan replied. "Of all that you're interested in sitting around. And the beer you brought is good." He probably wasn't wrong—Kas was a lot of things, but sexist wasn't one of them. "Also fuck you, I wore sunscreen."

"Like a responsible thirtysomething, and not the young punk you used to be?"

Aidan threw another pokeball, this time for Kas. It smacked him right in the chest, and out popped Frost, who harrumped and immediately moved from the deck into the navigation room, flicking her tails with obvious irritation.

By this point, Kas was doubled over laughing, but he managed to recover enough to speak. "To answer your question, Ryk, we're here because I'm looking for a specific pokémon, and I thought you guys wouldn't mind the chance to relax a little."

Drake snorted softly, and tossed a pokeball out towards the water. His gyarados appeared, roaring rather loudly as Drake tried to hush it. “Go be bothersome elsewhere, but you need the stretch," he stated, earning a light huff from the gyarados. Eryk contemplated whether or not he should release the pokemon he had. Moira was with Ana, though, and likely wouldn't like being out in the ocean. Imp would try and scare the fish away accidentally, Red would likely try and fight with Eryk, and Icarus would likely scare the water-types away on purpose. Orion was his only choice, and the pidgeot would appreciate the chance to spread his wings.

And so he released the pokemon and turned his attention back towards Kas. “I'd tan, for your information. I'm not as pale as Drake and Aidan," he stated, pursing his lips lightly together. Drake, however, rubbed his neck sheepishly and glanced at Aidan.

“Do you still have that sunscreen? I don't want to burn," he asked, almost in a pleading tone.

“You should let him burn," Eryk stated simply as he checked his fishing rod. He knew he wasn't going to catch anything; of the many talents he had, fishing was not one of those. They were going to be out here for a while if Kas was looking for a particular pokemon, though.

Aidan passed a tube of sunscreen over to Drake, baiting and casting his line. "Never really got any good at this," he muttered, settling into one of the deck chairs.

"It's fine," Kas replied, casting his own line with the air of an expert. "Mostly a way to pass the time."

"I guess." He let out a sigh; the sun had come through the clouds and effectively cleared the mist, so he dropped his sunglasses onto his face. "While we're here though, you might as well ask me, Nero. About what's been eating you the last couple days."

Eryk furrowed his brows slightly as he glanced at Aidan. “I wouldn't exactly say it's eating at me," he stated before turning his attention back towards the ocean. “Cyrilla told me what you're doing for her," he began after a moment of silence. “She said you offered her your name to replace her own. What exactly are your intentions with that?" he asked. While he wasn't entirely against it, Cyrilla was his friend. His sister more than anything, and he wanted to make sure that Aidan wasn't going to do anything untoward.

“I don't disapprove, of it," he continued, clearing that part up. “I want to make sure that what you're offering her doesn't have some ulterior motive. Friend or not, she is family." His only family that he'd ever put first.

Kas seemed to be interested in the answer, too, from the way he tilted his head as if to hear better.

Aidan sighed, propping his pole against the boat's railing and lighting up another cigarette. "I'm not trying to marry the kid, if that's what you're worried about." He shuddered a little. "She's a good person, but I couldn't see her that kind of way even if I wanted to, which... I don't."

"Figured," Kas murmured, though he didn't interrupt further.

"But I thought, well, her family's pretty pissed at her right now, what with what she did and all. She was in the market for a new name, and as far as it goes, mine's more useful than most. The Koga know who I am, and more importantly they know the boss and I get along. So if they figure Cyrilla and I get along well enough for me to think of her as family, then they're more likely to leave her alone, you follow?"

Eryk blinked a little at the explanation. Put in that perspective, he could see why Cyrilla was considering Aidan's offer. She would be safer that way, and keep her family from trying to retaliate. Even the Koga knew better than to try and go against Gregorovich. If they did, there would be serious repercussions for them. Drake seemed a little confused, though.

“I feel a little left out. Did I miss something?" he asked as he glanced between the three of them. Eryk glanced in his direction, and pushed a soft sigh through his nose.

“I've complicated family, and Cyrilla is part of that," Eryk replied simply, slowly reeling his line in. He glanced back in Aidan's direction, and allowed his expression to ease a bit. “That might be a good idea, regardless, if she does take your name," he added, sighing softly. “Not afraid of the complications that might cause with Katia?" he asked, arching a brow in Aidan's direction. He only meant it mildly, but it was also a light concern.

Eryk wasn't an idiot when it came to the woman, and he knew Aidan wasn't, either.

Kas chuckled; Aidan made what sounded like a very juvenile gagging sound. "So to clarify, while this is a complaint about a woman, it does not qualify as complaining about women. But for fuckssake, that particular woman cannot take a hint."

“Katia... that was the relative of yours that was staying on the island for a few, right?" Drake asked as he glanced in Eryk's direction. “She didn't seem all too bad," he added, causing Eryk to give him a flat look.

“You haven't met her. You wouldn't say that if you knew her," Eryk retorted with a light huff. “And why did you ever think she would take a hint?" he asked, turning back towards Aidan. “When she's set her mind on something, in this case someone, she's not the type to give up so easily. You're lucky she hasn't targeted your neighbor-friend, yet," he stated. Eryk knew that Katia was aware of Aidan and Solomon's friendship.

Which meant that Katia would likely twist it into something it wasn't, and target Solomon for that reason alone. Before he could say anything else, though, there was a sudden tug on line, and he began to reel it in. It took him a couple of tries before he managed to see what his catch was, and gave the object a flat look.

“How in the world did you catch a branch? We're almost in the middle of the ocean!" Drake stated, trying not to laugh, it seemed.

Kas made a sound that sounded like an exaggerated pfft before returning to his line, which was pulling aggressively.

Aidan shrugged, bringing up an empty line with missing bait. "At least you caught something."

Kas's catch proved to be a large seaking; he let it go immediately after bringing it up.

Eryk was tempted to throw the branch at Drake, but refrained from doing so. “Maybe you should call Skiff back," Ryk stated as he narrowed his eyes at Drake. He placed the bait back onto his line and cast it back out, though he had no intentions of actually catching anything. He'd admit that it was relaxing, with the soft waves and the occasional cry of a wingull.

They stayed for a couple of hours, the sun climbing high into the sky. Judging from the position, it was noon. So far, Eryk had caught several random branches, a cluster of seaweed, and an empty can. Drake had caught a couple of magikarp and had almost fallen overboard when he hooked a tentacool. Eryk supposed it would have been entertaining if he had fallen overboard, but he'd helped untangle the pokémon and set it back out.

“Any luck?" he asked, glancing towards Aidan and Kas.

"Jack shit," Aidan replied, though he didn't sound particularly upset by the fact. They'd broken out the beer a couple hours ago, and he'd propped his feet on the railing, holding a bottle in one hand and the rod in the other. Eryk had caught him dozing off a couple of times.

Kas, meanwhile, had been reeling in pokémon like it was a competition. Several magikarp, some corsola, a couple tentacool, three goldeen, and once an octillery that had narrowly missed leaving ink all over the deck.

Just as he'd opened his mouth to answer, his line snagged again. "I've got a good feeling about this one!" he said, evidently confident.

“You've caught just about everything here, what could you possibly be looking for?" Drake stated as he slowly reeled his own line in. Eryk was faintly curious as well, and had placed his fishing rod down for the time being. He wasn't going to cast it out again with the little luck he was having catching something.

“If you wait a moment longer, maybe you'll find out," Eryk stated, reaching to grab another beer.

It took a few more minutes of dragging, but eventually Kas brought up quite a rare catch indeed: a rather shabby-looking, dull brown fish pokémon. "Gotcha, you sneaky so-and-so!" he declared, grabbing the net ball from his belt and tossing deftly for the feebas.

It disappeared in a red flash, and the ball dropped to the deck, shaking as it tried to fight its way out. Once, twice, thrice... and then the ball settled.

Kas stooped to pick it up, flashing a grin at them. "And that's the reason for the fancy nav tech," he said. "Finicky jerks only like water of a certain temperature and pressure. There's a tidal current around the island that matches it, but it moves a bit with the seasons, so you have to know what you're looking for."

“All that for a feebas?" Drake stated almost incredulosly. “Couldn't you have adopted the one Ana has?" he continued, arching a brow in Kas's direction.

“Bubbles isn't for adoption," Eryk interjected. “And he's the only feebas at the shelter," he explained. “I doubt Kas would want to add a feebas that isn't going to be able to battle to his team."

“Still, there are other ways than spending a few hours out on the ocean, right? I mean, feebas are kind of hard to raise, aren't they?" Drake stated as he glanced towards Aidan, for some reason.

"They are, sure. But way better to catch one wild than rely on a hatchery. Half of those places are rampant with disease." There was something slightly off about Aidan's tone, but it was hard to say what it was.

"True," Kas agreed. "And she's not for my team, anyhow. I'll make sure the next couple months are good for her, though."

Eryk was slightly confused as to what Kas meant by that, but he wasn't going to press. “If you say so," he said simply, shrugging his shoulders a bit. “You can take her by Ana's to have her check the feebas over if you'd like," Eryk offered. He was almost certain that Ana wouldn't mind. That, and he didn't particularly like the people at the Center. A relative of Ana's, if he remembered correctly, always seemed to put him in a sour mood. He avoided the place like the plague unless he had to go pick supplies up for or with Ana.

“Oh, it's about noon, right? Let's go get lunch, too! I'm starving," Drake added, causing Eryk to roll his eyes lightly. “We can invite the girls, too, if you want. I just want to go to Jo's!"

"Of course you do, kid."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Anastasia Asher
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


November 27th
Ana's House - Evening - Light Rain
Kasimir Rheinallt


"Oof." Kas exaggerated the sound as he plopped to the ground in Ana's living room, stretching his legs out in front of him. They wound up well under the coffee table, but he was used to that kind of thing. He propped his back against the front left of the armchair Cyrilla occupied, passing up the second glass of wine he'd retrieved for her.

Dinner had been excellent, in his semi-professional opinion, and now they were all sort of lazing around and letting themselves digest. Ana, being Ana, had made sure to have plenty of the good stuff on hand for the pokémon as well; Meep was already dozing next to his hip; he dropped his free hand gently onto her coat. His new catch was still sitting on his belt; he'd not mentioned her to anyone but the guys just yet. She was going to be a surprise—he'd sworn Eryk and Drake to secrecy, even if they didn't understand why.

Aidan probably had; there'd been a vague knowing glint in his eye when he nodded along with the others. Sometimes the amount that guy saw was downright scary. At least the big secret still seemed to be safe for the moment, but sometimes he wondered.

Not something to think about right now, anyway.

Ana giggled at him from her spot across the coffee table; she was sitting on a squashy cushion she'd stolen off the couch. Aidan was occupying half of that, a respectable distance between himself and Nev that seemed a little too deliberate. Like he had to think about it. Kas's deductive skills weren't quite as crazy-sharp as Aidan's, but he wasn't dull, either.

For the moment though, he grinned back at Ana; the charmer's smile he knew she was still a little taken aback by but in no genuine danger of falling for. "Thanks for dinner, Ana. I haven't eaten that well in a while."

"Oh please," she said, rolling her eyes at the compliment even as it turned her a little pink. "You eat your own cooking or Cyrilla's every day."

“While that may be, there's just something about eating a meal that someone else made who isn't Kas or myself," Cyrilla replied, grinning at Ana as she took a sip of the wine Kas had brought her. Ryk rolled his eyes slightly, taking a seat on the floor next to Ana. It seemed almost natural the way he sat there, not at all bothered by how close he was sitting. Perhaps he just didn't notice?

“Next year we'll have to change that up. Since you were so gracious to cook for us this year, Kas and I can cook next year and the rest of you get to bring whatever else you want," she continued, huffing lightly into her glass as if she were trying not to laugh at herself.

“Maybe we can alternate! Although... maybe skip me? I can't cook very well," Nev stated as she pursed her lips together. It almost looked like she was pouting.

“You'd have to skip me, too, otherwise it'd just be burgers," Drake added in a nonchalant fashion. Eryk huffed lightly, almost in a scoff-like fashion, but didn't comment.

"You can help when it's my turn, Doc," Aidan said, leaning back a bit into the couch. He'd opted for a warm whiskey rather than wine, and rested it on his knee, his ankle crossed over the other. It was about as relaxed as Kas had ever seen him. "Not that I'm all that fantastic either. It's been a while since I've done a holiday meal with anyone."

"No big family gatherings for you?" Kasimir asked, genuinely curious. He knew plenty about the Koga, a few things about Nev's parents, but both Ana and Aidan had... never really mentioned much about their families. He'd looked into Ana's of course, and so knew a lot more than he should, but it wasn't his business to share, so he'd never said anything. Aidan on the other hand was a complete mystery. Practically his entire personnel file was redacted, to the point where the full version didn't even exist digitally. He knew more about Gregorovich's personal life.

Aidan, though, just shrugged like it wasn't a big deal. "No big family," he pointed out. "Gramps and my grandmother are dead. Haven't talked to my mom in years. Not sure who my dad is. No siblings or cousins." He clearly wasn't broken up by it at all, just matter-of-fact.

“Well, there's..." Cyrilla began, pausing only a moment to count how many people were in the room, “seven of us here, now. This can be our own little family. Here. Now. Just the seven of us, and even Melly when she becomes the next champion of Kanto. It can just be between us, and no one else has to know."

“That's not how families work, Cy," Drake replied, chuckling lightly into his glass of water. He didn't seem too interested in drinking more beer. Eryk, however, rolled his eyes.

“We don't have to be a traditional one," Eryk stated with a light shrug of his shoulders.

Ana looked vaguely uncomfortable for just a split second; Kas almost missed it, and he sure as hell couldn't explain it. Either way, it seemed prudent to switch the topic of conversation. While he was rarely ever a prudent man, he was willing to make an exception in this case. "Okay," he said. "We're full and have all at least had something to drink. This means it's the perfect time for a game!"

"Why do I feel like this is going somewhere I'm twenty years too old for?" Aidan drawled.

Kas leaned into it, grinning broadly. "Who wants to play truth or dare?"

"Called it."

“I'd rather not," Ryk replied, giving Kas a flat look.

“But why not!? It sounds like fun. Haven't played that in a long time," Drake chimed in as he set his cup down. Nev chuckled lightly, but nodded her head in agreement.

“You don't have to play, Ryk, if you don't want to. No one here is going to force you to," she stated in a light tone as she placed her own cup down to the side.

“But there have to be rules to this! Otherwise it's a boring game," Cyrilla suggested as she leaned a bit in her chair.

“Like what?"

Cyrilla grinned. “Like if you chicken out of your dare, you're going to have to do something ten-times more embarrassing. Of course, that doesn't mean we'll be completely rutheless about it, or rather, I won't. If it's really something you're uncomfortable with, it can pass."

“Seems fair."

“Hush, Ryk, you said you weren't playing."

"Also you can't lie on a truth question, but you can pass those too, if you're a coward." Kas hadn't really expected anyone to go for it, but now that they had, he was going to make sure they did it right.

"How would we even know?" Ana asked, tilting her head to the side. She'd moved back to water also.

"Because we have the Human Polygraph in our midst," Kas proclaimed solemnly, gesturing with his wineglass to Aidan.

The other man rolled his eyes. "Any other extra rules, or does someone want to start?"

“I think we are pretty good. With Ryk sitting out, that still gives us enough players," Cy stated as she wrinkled her nose in Ryk's direction. He responded with the same flat look he'd given to Kas.

“I'll go first!" Drake volunteered, reaching over to place his cup down on the coffee table. He glanced over in Aidan's direction, and grinned. “Truth or dare, old man!"

"This oughta be good," Aidan said, apparently completely unconcerned. "Dare. Better pick a good one, kid."

Drake's eyes widened for a second, presumably because he wasn't expecting Aidan to pick dare. “Uh, uh," Drake stuttered for a moment. He pursed his lips together before he seemed to think of something.

“Fine, I dare you to scare someone in this room within the next five minutes." He didn't seem at all satisfied with the dare, but it seemed to be enough for Drake.

Aidan snorted. "Sure," he said. "Rheinallt."

"Does it count if I'm already a little scared?" Kas joked. "But... truth."

Shrugging, Aidan lobbed him a question with a deceptively casual tone. "What's something most people think is true about you, but isn't?"

That I'm a loyal member of Team Rocket, his brain supplied helpfully. Fortunately, he'd grow very used to lying about this one particular fact, and picked something else to talk about. "Most people think I've been to college," he stated instead.

"You haven't?" Ana did indeed seem genuinely surprised.

"I'm pretty sure you and Sis are the only people in this room with degrees, Ana. I learned what I know from books and trying things out, mostly. Speaking of Sis though: truth or dare?"

“Oh, um, um, hold on," Nev seemed a little caught off guard and seemed to try and settle on an answer. “I've never played before, so..." she trailed off, smiling a little too broadly, perhaps.

“I choose dare!"

Kas snickered, deciding to go easy on her for now. She probably hadn't played this game before, after all. "I want you to—"

Wham! Before he could finish, Aidan abruptly slammed his hand flat on the coffee table. Ana jumped, letting out a startled squeak.

"There. I scared someone." Aidan leaned back against the couch again. "Sorry, Ana."

She smiled, then shook her head. "That's okay."

"Simple, but effective," Kas remarked. "Anyway, Sis. I want you to cuss up a storm. Actual swear words, as many as you can fit in ten seconds. Go."

Nev's eyes widened slightly, and seemed almost nervous about it. She took in a sharp breath, though, and narrowed her eyes slightly at Kas. “Fine, ten seconds. Also, um, sorry in advance?" she stated.

“Arceusdamn, mother fucking shit, son of a bitch, prick headed ass-kisser—" she began listing off some of the words and continued for the remaining few seconds. During the ten seconds Nev was listing off her swear words, Cyrilla was slightly trembling from holding back a few laughs. Drake, however, was almost doubled over from laughing. Even Eryk seemed to find it amusing if the subtle smirk on his face was anything to go by.

“Oh my Arceus, Nev. Holding back much?" Cyrilla stated once she seemed to have her laughter under control. Nev's face was slightly red, as she chuckled nervously.

“The office can be a little stressful?" Nev stated as more of a question than a statement.

“I didn't think you had that in you, though. That was great," Drake said once he was able to breathe.

Kas was laughing so hard by the end of it that he almost had tears in his eyes. "Tell us how you really feel," he quipped. Ana's eyes were wide, but she was smiling too.

Aidan, also smiling a little, reached over to pat her on the shoulder. "There were guys in the gang that knew fewer good ones," he said, eyes narrow with mirth. If anything, he was teasing her.

“Thanks?" Nev didn't seem entirely sure how to take that, but she was smiling regardless. “Alright, Cyrilla, truth or dare," she spoke as she turned in Cyrilla's direction. Cy rolled her eyes softly but grinned.

“Fine, I'll choose..." she paused, almost to give it a dramatic effect, “dare." Nev grinned as if she were anticipating Cy to say that, and wrinkled her nose a bit.

“I dare you to massage Kas's head like a furfrou," she stated. Cy snickered softly and glanced in Kas's direction.

“Do I have to tell him he's a good boy, too?" Cyrilla asked, clearly in a teasing manner. Drake snorted softly at the statement while Eryk rolled his eyes. “Alright, Kas, c'mere. Ana," she stated, motioning for Kas to move his head a little closer and turning her attention towards Ana.

“Truth or dare?"

"Try to actually make it difficult next time, Sis," Kas advised, leaning slightly to give Cyrilla easier access to his head. He took the tie out, too, ruffling his hair a bit. It'd kind of suck to try to do with all the strands pulled into a tight formation, after all.

"Umm." Ana looked unsure, but apparently decided she was feeling brave. "Dare."

Cyrilla snickered, running her fingers through Kas's hair to detangle it, it seemed. “Alright, I dare you to..." she paused as if to give it some thought, “assign everyone a color and call them by that color until it's your turn, again." It seemed Cy was going easy on Ana, and grinned in her direction.

Ana frowned a little, clearly sensing it, but hummed anyway, naming them in a circle, starting with Sis. "Okay, uhhh... Blue for Nev. Red for Aidan, green for Kas, pink for you, Cyrilla, purple for Drake, and... grey for Eryk. And, uh... truth or dare to... red!"

Kas chuckled softly, rather enjoying Cy's fingers in his hair and making no attempt to conceal the fact. He wondered how many people had called Aidan 'Red' before. Probably loads, with hair like that.

"Truth." He looked amused; probably wondering what she'd ask him.

"Ummm. Would you rather be forced to dance every time you heard music, or forced to sing along to every song you heard?"

Aidan snorted, the sound turning into a short bark of laughter. "Those both sound awful, but I'll go with singing, since you never said it had to be audible. Cyrilla, choose your fate."

Drake chuckled lightly as he arched a brow in Aidan's direction. He didn't say anything, though, and seemed to merely wait for Cy to reply.

“Hm, tough one," Cy started as she removed one of her hands from Kas's head to tap her chin in a thoughtful manner. “I guess... I'll go with truth, 'cause why not?" she shrugged her shoulders before returning her hand to where it had been.

"In your expert bisexual opinion, who in this room has the nicest ass?" Aidan's delivery was so dry and deadpan it could have been a question about the weather.

Kas, of course cracked up.

Cyrilla snorted a little harshly before she laughed, leaning forward so that her head was on the back of Kas's. She didn't seem to laugh loudly in his ears though, seemingly more amused by the way Aidan delivered the question. “Oh, that's a tough one," she started once she'd gained control of her laughter.

“I'd have to say, as far as nicest ass goes, it would definitely have to be Kas's. You should have been there during the Camilla festival when we were keeping a ball between us. He's got cheeks of steel!" Drake nearly choked on his drink at the statement as he coughed into his hands. Nev seemed to be finding it amusing as well since she was chuckling lightly. Kas lost it again at the ridiculous phrase, which was probably her intention in using it.

“But if I had to rank them..." Cy continued, glancing at everyone in the room, “I'd say Kas's was first, Nev's would have to be second because my arceus, woman, you have one. Despite how small you are, Ana, you'd be third with Drake right behind you. Ryk... you and Aidan would be tied for last."

Aidan nodded sagely, as if this were the result he'd expected all along. Ana was the approximate color of a cherry, and made an awkward squeaking sound into her hands. Poor thing.

“Alright, Drake, truth or dare," Cyrilla stated as arched a brow at him. Drake seemed to contemplate it for a moment.

“I choose the truth!" he declared, seemingly not at all afraid of what she would have him say. Cyrilla's grin only broadened.

“If you had to choose between being naked or having everyone know your thoughts, which one would you choose?" she asked, causing Drake to give her a flat look. His face was turning a light pink, though, as he seemed to contemplate it.

“I'm not ashamed; I'd go naked," he declared, finally.

“Ashamed or not, not everyone would like to see you in all your nakedness. I'd rather be blind," Ryk deadpanned, as he shook his head.

“Hey, now, that's just mean."

“Never said I was nice."

Nev and Cy snickered at the same time at the banter before Drake pouted and turned his attention towards Kas.

“Truth or dare, Kas."

"Dare," he replied immediately.

“I dare you to make eye contact with anyone of your choosing and don't break it until it's your turn again," Drake stated, seemingly happy with his choice.

Kas rolled his eyes. As Cy was still petting his hair, he elected to lock eyes with Ryk instead. It was easy, because Ryk could passively stare without feeling the least bit awkward about it. Still doing so, he shrugged. "Boss."

"Not my name. And dare."

"I'm sad I'm going to miss this because of Drake's stupid dare, but do a cartwheel."

Aidan sighed, but there was a sound, presumably him standing, and then another, his glass hitting one of the coasters on the coffee table. A series of soft thuds.

"Oh, nice form, Ai—Red!" Ana exclaimed, genuinely delighted.

"Thank you. Doc, it's your turn."

“I chose dare last time," Nev replied.

“You don't have to alternate if you don't want to, Nev. That's not how it works."

“Oh, then I'll choose dare, again!" she sounded happy about it, for some reason.

Aidan huffed. "Tell everyone in the room the first impression you had of them. Except me. I already know you thought I was a taxi service."

Ana giggled. "Really?"

“I still feel bad for it, really. I thought he was the driver when I first arrived to Cinnabar, even though he'd introduced himself as not the driver. Not in those words, mind you," Nev replied a little grumpily. She smiled, though, and sighed.

“Well, that's a little easy, though, for everyone else. Kas, I thought you weren't really part of the tech team when we first met in Johto. You just didn't have that air of someone who'd spent most of their time behind computers," she began with Kas first, grinning at him a little stupidly. She was likely still drunk.

“Ana was the cutest thing I'd ever seen. I think it was because of how out of place you seemed at the shelter. Mostly because of the contrast the clothes were, but you're still the sweetest person I know. Second to none."

She pointed at Ryk. “You were a little hard to read, but like Ana, you were probably one of the nicest people, albeit a little lonely? You just... something always seems sad in your eyes," she pursed her lips a bit in his direction, though Ryk didn't respond.

“And you!" she nearly shouted, giggling as she turned towards Drake. “You didn't live up to my expectations of meeting Kanto's number... what was it now, two? most eligible bachelor." Cyrilla huffed lightly at the way Drake's eyes widened and his cheeks pinked.

“Last," Nev began again, turning her attention towards Cy, “I thought you had the most beautiful shade of hair I'd ever seen. Is it as soft as it looks? Because it looks like it'd still kind of just melt in your hands like snow."

“You can come touch it if you want, Nev. I'm not gonna bite you unless you want me to," Cyrilla replied almost casually, moving one hand so that it was on the right side of Kas's head as she continued to massage it.

“Maybe next time," Nev chuckled. “alright, Kas, your turn!"

That was about as funny as he'd thought it would be. Kas shook his head, lightly enough so as not to mess with that Cy was doing; the absurd desire was there to lean into her touch like a delcatty, but he refrained. Barely. Beside him, Meep sighed in her sleep and rolled over.

"All right, dare. What've you got, Sis?"

Nev chuckled lightly as she smiled. “Fine, I dare you to..." she paused, glancing around the room as she pursed her lips together, “cuddle with anyone of your choosing for the rest of the game. And that includes you, too, Ryk!" Eryk narrowed his eyes at her, though.

“No."

“Aw, why not? At least you should be an option."

“Because I'm not playing." He took a sip of his drink, keeping his gaze locked with Nev's as if her were almost daring her to keep insisting.

“Fine, cuddle with anyone but Ryk," Nev murmured, almost as if she were upset.

Kas sighed, as though his first choice had indeed just become unavailable to him. Of course, then an even funnier idea occurred to him—Ryk was going to kill him for this and it was going to be completely worth it.

Shifting a bit so that his legs were gathered up and crossed, he patted his knee. "I pick Ana."

Ana herself looked predictably astonished by this development, her eyes widening so much he had to stifle a chuckle. She raised a hand to point at herself. "Me?"

He grinned. "You. If you don't mind."

She considered this for a moment. "Um... I suppose not." Shrugging, she moved over towards where he and Cy were, then paused. "Do I just...?"

It was too adorable, really. Shooting a conspiratorial grin at Cy, he held his arms out. "Just over here in my lap. Sit facing out—it'll be more comfortable that way."

She cleared her throat, but gamely did as he asked, and he gave her a bit of a hug from behind. "Let me know if anything's uncomfortable, okay? Don't do this just because a dare said so. I want you to tell me if you want to stop." He kept the words low, murmuring them next to her ear. In part because they weren't for anyone but her, but also partly because it would look suggestive in a way Ana didn't understand but their audience did.

Ana nodded, and he felt her relax back a little. It was very tame cuddling, and very platonic, but it was cuddling all the same.

When he was sure she wouldn't spontaneously combust, he made a show of sighing contentedly. "Nothing like being the middle of a pretty girl sandwich," he said, tipping his head back to meet Cy's eyes and wink.

Nev snickered softly, unaware of what Kas was intentionally trying to do, however; the look Eryk gave him basically said eat shit and die. Cyrilla's hands were shaking as if she were trying to contain her laughter, while Drake just smiled in a confused manner.

“She did say anyone, but you, Ryk. We all know you're jealous," Cy stated through a soft snort, though the way she phrased it seemed to imply that Ryk was jealous of Ana cuddling with Kas instead of himself. She was teasing him.

“She's got a point there, Ryk," Drake added as he turned towards Kas. “Your turn, Green!"

"The color rule wasn't for you, Purple," Kas fired back, grinning wickedly back at Ryk and propping his chin on the crown of Ana's head. Her hair was very soft, a detail he looked forward to mocking his friend with at a later time.

"Let's see. Drake, truth or dare?"

It was a very good day to be Kasimir Rheinallt.

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



Image


December 3rd
Field Office 9 - Morning - Cool
Eryk Nero


Eryk stifled a yawn, blinking slowly to clear his eyes. He had stayed up almost all night with Stella, making sure that her breathing had returned back to normal. He'd known, of course, that the stunky was going to have breathing problems for the rest of her life, however; last night had been an especially bad episode. It might have been that the weather was getting colder, or perhaps something else. He sighed heavily before pushing the door open to the conference room. Aidan and Cyrilla were inside, though from the way her head rested against the table, she might have been sleeping on it.

Her head turned, though, and she smiled at him. “Morning, Ryk," she greeted as he took a seat. He simply nodded his head in greeting before glancing towards Aidan.

“Where's Kas?" he asked. He wasn't in the room, yet.

“Ah, he's bringing breakfast croissants. He lost a bet last night and now he has to bring breakfast for us for the entirety of this week," Cyrilla replied, smiling a little smugly. Eryk wasn't too sure what that was about, but he shook his head softly and rolled his eyes.

He did, in fact, appear a few minutes later, a large box in one hand and a tall cup of coffee in the other. He dropped the box onto the table without spilling the contents, then dropped into his chair, yawning. "Don't play Rochambeau with a ninja, boss. They cheat."

Aidan snorted. "Don't have to tell me that." He opened the box and fished out a pastry, passing a few napkins around the table so they wouldn't have to set their food down directly on it. "All right, I don't think I have to remind you that the Saffron Stakes is next month."

“Next month?" Eryk questioned, giving Aidan a flat look. He'd forgotten about that. Maybe because the three of them hadn't been training as rigorously as they had been, or maybe it was because he had other things on his mind? Like the shelter.

“Did you forget?" Cy asked, arching a brow at him as she took a bite out of one of her pastries.

“I had other things to do," Ryk replied smoothly. “And training had stopped for a week, or so," he added, causing Cy to sigh softly.

"Yeah, well. It's going to be picking back up again, don't you worry," Aidan replied, waving a hand. "The rest was necessary recover time. It gets about twice as hard starting tomorrow at 7am."

That statement was punctuated by a loud, agonized groan from Kas, who folded his arms on the table and dropped his forehead onto them. "Just kill me now," he whined.

Aidan made eye contact with Eryk and Cyrilla, a wicked smile flashing across his face for a moment before yielding to his usual deadpan expression. "What's that, Rheinallt? You'd prefer 5? You know, you're probably right; an extra two hours a day is much closer to what it was actually like training for the league."

Kas's head snapped up, his expression one of unadulterated horror. "You're a monster."

"No," Aidan replied flatly, "I am, as you constantly remind me, your boss. 5am, and look alive."

Eryk shrugged his shoulders, though. He was used to being up around that time to help with the morning preparations at Ana's shelter. He would just have to let Ana know that training was going to pick up again. Cyrilla, however, seemed to find the situation amusing, as she chuckled in Kas's direction.

“Oh, it's not that bad, Kas. It'll only be for a couple of weeks," she stated, taking another bite of her pastry. Eryk shook his head, though.

“You only say that because you're not doing any of the training," Eryk replied, causing Cyrilla to snort softly.

“Not the same kind of training you two will be doing, but I've got other things to take care of, too, you know," she grinned in Eryk's direction. “And besides, it's not like you will be training on empty stomachs. I can coordinate with Ana and have breakfast and lunch made the night before so all you have to do is wake up, go train. We'll even throw in lunch and breakfast for big brother Aidan."

"I knew I was gonna regret that," Aidan said with a sigh. "Speaking of: I still need that paperwork from you, little ninja." Without a last name to call her by, Aidan had used 'Cyrilla' for a while, but lately it seemed to switch between that and 'little ninja,' which had slipped out late at night on Thanksgiving, when most of the group had been pretty drunk. It seemed to have stuck.

“I'm working on it," she replied, huffing slightly. “It's a lot of paperwork, mind you," she added. Eryk felt the corner of his lip twitch upwards a bit before glancing in Aidan's direction.

“It's not going to create any other problems, here, will it?" he asked. Even though they were friends, in that strange sort of way that Eryk found himself enjoying, that didn't mean it would be well-received within the facility. NTR was as cutthroat as it could possibly be, and though things had died down for the moment, any of the grunts could take this the wrong way and blow it out of proportion.

Aidan shrugged. "I have a reputation for doing things that I don't explain to anyone," he said. "They'll complain, and speculate, but they won't do anything, because all of them know I'm Gregorovich's interrogator and that terrifies the shit out of them."

Kas chuckled, a bit darkly. "Afraid you'll track them down and crack some skulls?"

Aidan's lips twitched. "I'm sure most of them aren't worried for their skulls. Their fingers, though..."

“Why is it always the fingers?" Cyrilla murmured, taking a drink of her cup. Eryk snorted softly, understanding what she'd meant by that. It was the first thing they started with when they were teaching torture techniques in the clan.

“Be glad he wasn't speaking of the eyes," Eryk chimed in, watching as Cyrilla visibly shuddered. “I'll ask Ana to switch Nova with Moira so that he gets some training in as well," he stated. He was certain that Nova would appreciate it. They had, after all, agreed to work together since Moira would be helping Ana out, and the absol abhorred battling. Eryk had always respected that; it was her choice, whether or not she wanted to battle. He'd never say otherwise.

Aidan nodded. "Please do." Expelling a breath, he visibly shifted gears. "All right, now that the official shit's over, I figured we should start talking about Marna's roof. Storm season's over, according to Rheinallt, so I looked into new materials. Tiling's probably the best option, and feasible if we want to install it ourselves. You guys still interested?"

"Obviously," Kas replied immediately.

“Of course," Eryk answered. “I've the funds to cover it as well," he added, causing Cyrilla to purse her lips at him.

“No, Ryk. We have the funds to cover it," she stated, pulling out an envelope. “I asked everyone to chip in for donations so you wouldn't be the only one paying out of pocket. We have enough for the materials, but after that, everything is going to be manual labor. From all of us who are capable of it," she explained, pushing the small envelope towards the middle of the table.

“Fine. If we order what we need now, we should be able to receive everything necessary in a couple of weeks," Eryk suggested. Cinnabar had resources, but what they were going to need would have to be shipped to them.

Aidan nodded. "I'll put in the order this afternoon. I've got a pretty good guess what color and style she'll like best. If boat shipping works on the right timeline, it should be two weeks exactly." He considered a moment. "We'll probably want to set aside a weekend for it, so mark off the one right before the 25th."

"Speaking of Christmas, did anyone else get an adorable glittery invitation in the mail from Ana?" Kas asked, lifting an eyebrow. "Apparently we're all invited to a Christmas party. I propose we dress up for it."

“Kas... we live together. The invitation was for the both of us, and Ryk lives with her," Cyrilla snickered softly as she glanced in Eryk's direction with a grin.

“Do we have to?" he stated, pursing his lips together. He didn't want to dress up for an event like that, mostly because he didn't really have anything that would be proper. Besides, it was only going to be the seven of them; why did he need to dress up for them?

“Because you're not just dressing up for us, Ryk. You're doing it to impress Ana and to show her you can clean up when you want to. There's nothing wrong with fluffing your feathers a bit," Cyrilla replied as if reading his mind. “If you want, we can go out after this meeting and I can help you find something for it. You don't have to buy it right away, you can have a couple of options first. Same goes for you, too, Aidan."

"Don't lump me in with him. I own a suit."

"Is any part of it any color besides black?"

"Can it, Rheinallt. Black is a perfectly fine color for a suit."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


December 7th
Backisland Beach - Too Damn Early - Clear
Kasimir Rheinallt


"Fuck," Kas gasped, falling over the finish line in the sand just slightly ahead of Eryk. Both of them were well behind Aidan, who didn't look even slightly winded as he reversed direction to face them. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow at least; it wasn't at all hot on the island at this time of the morning this time of year, but running a lap around the whole damn thing, most of them over sand, would do that.

Rolling over to sprawl on his back, Kas let himself catch his breath. The last mile had been pretty much all-out, and even in good shape as he was, this wasn't the kind of thing he did to such an extreme on his own time. It'd been a while since his most intense training period as a kid, and admittedly in the last year or so he'd slacked a bit on training. His dad'd be yelling at him right now for letting himself go, even if a ten-mile run was still well beyond what most anyone would bother with.

Beside him, Sigrún was breathing heavily as well, the lucario's endurance tested right along with his. He reached over and patted her head; she nosed against his palm, apparently too tired to do much more than send him the telepathic equivalent of a nudge.

Lani, who'd swum most of the laps, emerged from the ocean, her tail dragging a bit in the wet sand behind her, and flopped over next to the rest of them. Aidan's pokémon were about as used to all of this as he was, and of Kas's, Princess Cinders and Widget seemed to have handled it the best, though even they landed a bit heavily, Cinders with a grudging grunt. Meep had lost the ability to keep up about five miles in, and was resting in her ball. Boss was a hard teacher, not a complete asshole of one.

"Take five, guys," he said. "And don't forget to stretch."

"How?" Kas complained. "How are you in such good shape? You're a smoker, for fuck's sake!"

Aidan snorted. "I also don't skip the gym, Rheinallt."

Eryk grunted a short response to Aidan's reply, flopping down on the other side of Kas. He didn't seem to bother turning over like Kas did, and laid face first in the sand. His pidgeot, Orion, landed on the other side of him, stretching out its wings before falling suit. It made a soft humming noise as Eryk turned his face in Aidan's direction. Icarus and Red had returned to their own balls about a mile after Meep had, and Imp seemed content to fall on Eryk's back. Ryk didn't seem to have the need to tell him to move, but pursed his lips.

“Gym or not, this is still torture for those of us not in a former champion's good shape," he stated taking in a deep breath. He let out another oof when Runt fell on his back as well.

Aidan chuckled softly. "I did warn you it was going to get more intense," he said, already starting to stretch himself out.

This part wasn't actually so bad—apparently yoga of all things was also part of their new regimen. Kas was completely in favor of this: it was proven that flexibility and regular stretching were great ways to reduce injury. Something he definitely wanted for his pokémon and something he could certainly use for himself. And if anyone had a problem with three dudes doing beach yoga in the morning, he'd be happy to demonstrate the benefits it had for his martial arts form, too.

That said... he was still exhausted. With a groan, he rolled back over and pushed himself up into down growlithe, his pokémon faithfully stretching, too. He even gave Meep's ball a toss so she could join back in.

"There's intense and then there's insane," he quipped.

"If you can still run your mouth, maybe your legs didn't do enough of it," Aidan replied, transitioning into a flawlessly-straight handstand.

Asshole.

Ryk snorted somewhat, pushing himself up and causing the two pokemon on his back to fall off. He stood, dusting off the sand from his body. “This is intense, not insane, Kas," Ryk retorted before taking a warrior one pose. “If you want insane, I can get you into the compound for an hour," he added, glancing in Kas's direction.

"And yet you're as tired as I am," Kas observed, folding himself in half and wrapping his arms around his legs to stretch out his hamstrings. They were, of course, very warm already, which helped, but he could feel a pull in them anyway, and left himself there long enough to relax into it.

"Besides, I didn't say I wanted to die, so don't talk about siccing your insane family on me. At least I can believe boss isn't doing it on purpose." He feigns a shudder, though he doesn't have to try hard to do it.

In a way, the joke is nearing a boundary, and he doesn't know how comfortable Ryk will be with that. But he'd mentioned them first, so Kas figured he might as well use the opportunity to find out. If he went too far, he can always apologize.

Ryk just shrugged his shoulders, though. “You'd likely lose an appendage of sorts. Which one would be up to whatever training they wanted you to go through. Almost lost a few fingers learning how to properly utilize throwing knives," he replied with a strange ease, as if it were just something natural to say. Almost as if he remembered something, he brought his arms down and held out his arm a bit.

“That scar," he began, pointing to the one over his forearm near his elbow, “was from where I almost lost my arm. I was... thirteen?" He shrugged as if he didn't recall, exactly, before he straightened out his posture.

“This one," he pointed to one on his leg, below his knee, “I almost lost to a feral feraligatr that had been in a trap door."

"Fuck's sake," Aidan said, dropping back onto his feet and focusing on a different sequence of leg stretches. "I've had people try to shoot me and it seems less ridiculous."

Kas nodded, shifting into a lunge. "It's so fucking pointless," he said, shaking his head. "Not that this is even close to the main thing wrong with that, but the science shows that shit like that isn't even effective, as a way of teaching people. Yeah, sometimes you have to work hard and be tired, but just like torture never actually works, training like that's..." He expels a hard breath. It was hard to even get his head around it. It came down to cruelty for the sake of cruelty, really, and while he'd had a couple run-ins with stuff like that, it'd never been from his family. From the people who were responsible for his safety. Who were supposed to love him.

Because they did love him. Even if sometimes things went wrong, none of them had ever really made him doubt that. It wasn't that he was lucky, though he was. It was just that Ryk had apparently never even been treated with basic human decency. It made him sick.

“I suppose they never got the memo about it," Ryk stated, his lip twitching just slightly into a light smirk. He rolled out his shoulder a bit, stretching them out before pulling his arm in front of him. “Training like that was effective for a time, but by now I'm sure they've implemented other things. I'd have to ask those that are still in training to find out for sure," he stated.

“Have you been shot, though?" Eryk asked, turning his attention towards Aidan. He seemed intrigued about the statement.

Aidan nodded. "Yeah, once. Drive-by." He lifted the hem of his black shirt a little so they could see the finger-width scar that tracked his side for about three inches. "It lodged, but not too deep. Maybe an inch to the left and it'd have missed."

Kas felt his eyebrows ascend. "Did you need surgery?"

He shrugged. "Probably. But I drank half a bottle of whiskey and pulled it out with tweezers. I uh... couldn't really afford the hospital." He dropped the shirt, then pointed to a long, thin, jagged slash on the outside of one forearm. "Broken bottle. Got a few cigarette burns on my back. But most stuff didn't cut or whatever. Not too many scars."

Arceus, him too? Sometimes Kas really didn't know what was wrong with the world. "Don't tell me you were 'training' too."

"Only if not pissing off my relatives was a sport and I didn't know it." He straightened, patting down his pockets before frowning.

Eryk didn't say anything to that. He simply sighed and shook his head before picking up Icarus, who had waddled up towards him. He placed the espurr on his shoulders before placing a hand on Runt's head, giving it a rub as the tyrunt huffed lightly.

“It's been more than five minutes for stretches. What else is on the agenda for today?" he asked, turning his attention towards Aidan.

"Move work," Aidan said immediately, giving up on whatever searching he seemed to be doing. Possibly cigarettes. "We're gonna practice blasts to build up force and duration, and then transition to evasive maneuvers. Rex and Frost are going to shoot projectiles at yours so they can practice dodging."

Kas nodded; that was all reasonable. Having a real pro's pokémon to practice against made almost as much difference as access to his regimen did. "Righto, boss!"

"Don't call me boss."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Rocket Files
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



December 14th
Cinnabar Island - Afternoon - Cool
Drake Bellamy


Drake dragged a hand through his hair, feeling a smile on his face as he sent his latest text to Mel. It wasn't much, just an update to let her know that he was hanging out with her brother, Ryk, and Aidan today. He found it strange how he was looking forward to her texts almost constantly. The phone calls were great, too, but sometimes she was in an area where the reception was a little off. That, or it was his phone, he couldn't be too sure. Sometimes they talked for a few minutes, other times it felt like hours. It was... nice to be able to do that.

His last relationship, if he could even call it that, was a text every ten seconds or a phone call every time a text wasn't answered immediately. What he had seen in Kevin still remained a mystery to Drake. Sure, Kevin had a certain kind of attractiveness, but his personality had remained atrocious. He shook the thought out of his head, though, and glanced towards the other three.

“How is training going so far? A few of the gym challengers were giggling about three gorgeous dudes running around the backisland and doing yoga," he stated, grinning slightly when Eryk rolled his eyes.

Kas laughed. "Well there were three dudes, but I must have missed the gorgeous part. Too much sweat in my eyes, or something." He grinned himself, clearly well aware nevertheless who the rumors were about and not at all annoyed.

Drake's phone pinged; it was a selfie of Mel biting off a stick of jerky, exaggerated to imply she was gnawing at it. She never seemed to be all that concerned with looking a certain way, and her photos were more often humorous or of things around her than anything. The text below it read:

Please eat something good while you're out. And take a picture of it. I'm dying on camp rations over here and don't remember what real food looks like.

Aidan raised an eyebrow, perhaps having caught a look at the screen. Either that or he was just being freak-perceptive like he was sometimes. "Someone's having a good couple of weeks," he observed.

“Yep, best couple of weeks I've had so far," Drake replied, frowning a bit. He hoped that Mel was getting the proper nutrition, at least. “Mel wants me to take a picture of the food we get when we go eat. She's, and I quote, dying on camp rations," he added, sending a quick text to her.

Let me know the next PokéCenter you stop at and I'll send you something for food!!

“Why does everyone like taking pictures of their food?" Ryk finally spoke, glancing in Drake's direction. “Every time we go to Jo's, there's a few people taking pictures of their food before they eat it. By the time they do, their food is already cold," he continued, causing Drake to chuckle lightly.

“It's for their Snapgram account. It's the latest thing, you know. You don't get out much, do you, Ryk?" Drake asked as Ryk gave him a flat look.

“I get out enough."

"I can only assume Mel's mostly joking in making the request," Kas added. "She tends to think being obsessed with that stuff is pointless, which she's not wrong about."

Aidan nodded. "It's really not that different than most shit tourists do," he noted. "It's just keeping the photo albums online instead of in your house."

"You know about Snapgram, boss?" Kas looked genuinely surprised.

Aidan sighed, though. "I'm not seventy, Rheinallt. I do at least try to keep track of the world around me."

Another message popped up. That's so sweet; you really don't have to. I'll be making a pit stop in Pallet in a week, though. If it's not too much trouble, I'd really like a Ragecandybar—the human kind, obviously. I'll take you to dinner next time we see each other to pay you back?

Drake felt his smile inch a little wider as he typed his reply. You don't have to pay me back, but dinner the next time you're here sounds good! Should I make a reservation at Jo's? He was only half kidding about that. Jo's didn't get enough foot traffic to warrant a reservation, after all.

“What's with the stupid grin, Bellamy?" Eryk asked, causing Drake to glance in his direction.

“You're just jealous I have a date, Ryk, and you don't." Ryk gave him a flat look and rolled his eyes.

“I don't need a date; I'm not going anywhere."

"Ryk that doesn't even make sense," Kas replied, before shifting his attention to Drake and grinning broadly. "Second date, huh? Look at you!" He didn't seem to feel the need to be weird about the fact that the date in question was obviously with his sister. Then again, he'd been present for the first one, and while he and Cyrilla had teased a fair amount, it had clearly all been in good humor.

"I dunno what she sees in you, kid," Aidan added, shaking his head as though it really were some great mystery. Of course, the tick to the corner of his mouth gave him away.

“Yeah, I'm with you there, old man. I dunno what she sees in me, either, but hey, it's all good!" Drake replied, not at all bothered by the fact that Aidan was pulling his leg. He turned back towards Kas, though, and grinned. “Well, second in-person date, but it's technically our..." he paused to give the effect that he was counting, “sixth one. We've done a few video chats."

"Cute," Kas said, exaggerating the word a little and rolling his eyes. He was still smiling, though. "She's been really happy in our calls lately, too. Just so you know."

Drake was about to respond to Kas's statement, however; he heard someone calling his name. From a distance, it sounded almost angry. Drake wasn't exactly the type of person who made people angry, simply because he tried to avoid it. Of course, he also knew that he couldn't please everyone and that someone, somewhere, was bound to dislike him. He could live with that, really. He didn't need people liking him for superfluous reasons. That wasn't what caused a sense of dread, though.

It was the voice.

He knew that voice. He avoided it like it was a plague. He stopped walking, causing Ryk to pause in his steps as well, as a familiar face came into view. Mauve colored hair was slicked back, and large aviator sunglasses rested on a small, angry nose. Why was the nose angry?

“Who is she!?" Kevin stated, not even glancing in the other three's direction. That caught Drake by surprise, though.

“Who is who?" Drake replied, furrowing his brows slightly.

“The hussy you've been seeing behind my back!" Kevin replied. Eryk seemed confused, his brows furrowing slightly in Kevin's direction. It almost looked as if Eryk was glaring at Kevin, however; if Kevin noticed, he didn't make show of it.

“Who the fuck are you?" Eryk asked, causing Kevin to snap his attention towards Ryk.

“None of your damn business."

Drake inwardly groaned. He really didn't want to go through this today.

"Ex-boyfriend," Aidan muttered, just loud enough for Ryk to hear.

"I think you mean 'fucking crazy stalker,'" Kas amended, not bothering to lower his tone and folding his arms over his chest. "How do you like the new security tech, stalker?"

Kevin didn't even appear to be alarmed by Kas's statement. In fact, Drake was quite certain Kevin didn't even hear a word Kas had said. He was glaring in Aidan's direction, though the reason wasn't quite clear. Perhaps he'd heard the ex-boyfriend part?

“And here I thought you had good taste," Ryk muttered, though Drake wasn't sure if he was joking or not. Sometimes it was hard to tell with Ryk.

“You haven't answered the question, Drake. Who. Is. She?" Kevin was glaring, now. Or it seemed he was attempting to. He was never good at doing that.

“Do we have to stay here and listen to the rattata squeak? I'd rather listen to steelix polishing their coats," Eryk stated, folding his arms across his chest. That, honestly, did sound more appealing to Drake.

“You mind your own business," Kevin spat, literally, near Eryk's feet. Ryk's eyes narrowed dangerously, his arms unfolding from their spot.

“Ryk's right, we don't have to stay here. And to answer your question," Drake stated quickly. He didn't want Eryk to do anything rash to Kevin, even if it was warranted. “I don't need to answer it. We're not together. I don't know how else to put it to you." Drake wasn't too sure how to make it any more clearer than he had already.

"Right, let's go," Kas said, shaking his head. "You just can't talk to some people."

Nodding slightly, Aidan put a gentle hand on Drake's shoulder. "If he hasn't listened yet, he won't," he said plainly. "Probably better to get outta here."

“Drake Kingsley Bellamy. Don't you dare ignore me," Kevin stated, causing Drake to flinch slightly. He'd forgotten that Kevin knew his middle name. Drake wasn't too fond of it, really. Taking a deep breath, though, he turned towards Kevin.

“I really don't know how else to spell it out for you, Kevin. We. Are. Done. We've been done for months, now. I don't know why that's so hard for you to understand. Go, move on. Go stalk some other poor fool, or better yet, don't. I don't care. You have your own life, now, and I have mine. This is the last, peaceful warning I am giving you. Stop interfering with my life; you're not part of it, and you will never be part of it, again."

Drake felt a little winded by that, but he needed Kevin to understand. It didn't seem to register, though, because Kevin merely glared at Drake.

“No. I refuse to give up, Drake. You don't give up on the people you love," he spoke, taking a step forward. Eryk, however, stood in between Drake and Kevin, glaring down at the purple-haired male with a strange look in his eyes.

“We're leaving. If you know what's best for you, you won't follow. If you do..." Ryk trailed off, letting the implication hang in the air for a second before turning towards Drake, and placing a hand on his shoulder, turning him so that he was facing away from Kevin. He gave a surprisingly gentle push, as if urging Drake to take the first step forward. He took it gladly, refusing to turn around to look at Kevin.

“This isn't over, yet, Drake!" he shouted, causing Eryk to roll his eyes.

“For his sake, it better be."

Aidan mumbled something under his breath that sounded like an agreement.

Kas, being Kas, waited until they were a reasonable distance away, then cleared his throat.

"...Kingsley, though? I'm sorry, man."

Eryk found it amusing, apparently, if the snort was anything to go by. Drake, however, sighed heavily. Perhaps even a little dramatically.

“Yeah... I know. Me too."

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Aidan Klein Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Eryk Nero Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt Character Portrait: Nevena Solomon Character Portrait: Anastasia Asher
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK



December 20th
The Cloyster - Afternoon - Cold
Cyrilla


“Thanks, Div," Cyrilla stated as she took the wrapping paper from the lycanroc. Diva huffed lightly before climbing on the bed with Cyrilla, and curled up beside her, resting her snout on Cyrilla's lap. She scratched behind Diva's ear, and smiled to herself. To say that she was excited was a bit of an understatement to Cyrilla. She'd never really done something like this before, something that was genuine with real friends. She reached up to her face and pulled her cheek a bit, wincing when the pain appeared.

“At least I know I'm not dreaming," she muttered to herself. Siri chirped from her spot on Cyrilla's head, reaching forward with her small hand and rummaging through the white strands that fell to Cyrilla's neck. She had to admit that it stung a bit. Cyrilla loved her hair long, but when she'd gone back to the compound, her parents had cut it. She'd only managed to salvage the rest of her hair when she'd left. It was partly the reason she had come back a little later than she'd wanted to, last month. The other reason was because she needed her back to heal a bit. She still wasn't comfortable wearing anything that exposed it.

It had been the breaking point for her, the point where she'd found some strange courage to say no more. Noctis sauntered into the room, though, pulling Cyrilla from her thoughts as he stared at her. “Time to go already?" she asked, feeling a smile tug at her lips when he simply stared at her. “Should have named you Ryk Jr. for how often you look like that," she teased, shifting Diva's snout away and pulling Siri from her head. Once she had the three of them tucked back into their pokeballs, she shifted the wrapping paper under her arm and exited her room. She wasn't entirely sure if they would actually need it, but it was nice to be somewhat prepared.

“Hey, Kas?" she called out, glancing around into the kitchen and half expecting him to be there. She blinked when he wasn't, and pursed her lips together. “Hey, Kas, we're going to be late to the cuteness that is Eryk and Ana if we don't leave soon!" she called out, chuckling lightly as she did. It's not like they were actually going to be late to any of that, really.

"They're going to give us diabetes one of these days," he called through his own door, probably just so she'd know he'd heard her. It took him a few more moments to appear, dressed casually in a pair of jeans and a a v-neck cream-orange sweater in concession to the weather. He'd still rolled the sleeves up to his elbows, though. He was carrying a smallish shopping bag in one hand and combing through his loose hair with the other.

The latter effort, he seemed to abandon, giving his head a few tosses and then raking his hand through once so his hair sat loose and artfully disheveled to his shoulders. "I think I need a haircut," he mused. "I'm not as shaggy as Ryk or boss, but it's definitely longer. What do you think, Cy?"

She huffed a soft laugh and smiled. “It looks good as is, but if you wanted a trim," she began, reaching up slightly to curl a strand of his hair in her finger, “I can help with that. I'm good with scissors, as you can tell." She grinned, pulling her hand back and pointed to her own her hair. It wasn't quite long enough to pull into a ponytail, but it was long enough to put half of it up.

“Although... if your hair was as short as mine, or shorter, I think it would look good, too. You'd look more like a geek, if anything, but it works really well for you, too. It will also show off a few more of your defined facial features that are usually hidden when you leave your hair down," she added. She wasn't going to deny that Kasimir was a handsome man. He had a lot of sharp features in his facial structure, but she supposed the thing she liked about him the most were his eyes. There was just something in them that she liked. She swallowed a little thickly, and cleared her throat, temporarily moving her gaze away from Kas. Cyrilla was a shy person sometimes, and she hated the random moments it came through.

"I don't know if I want to look more like a geek," he complained, apparently all in good fun. "But on the other hand, if I went with it, we'd both have fancy new short hair." He grinned a little, reaching over and brushing the pad of his index finger down the bridge of her nose. "So we can... what was it? Show off our features?" Apparently he'd noticed her sudden shyness; it certainly felt like he was teasing her for it. Even if he wasn't, she wasn't able to stop the light flush on her face. She stuck her tongue out at him in a playful manner, though.

“Yeah, if it's something you want to do, we can do it after we get these preparations out of the way. But you're also not wrong about them giving us diabetes one day. It's likely they'll just send us into a sugar shock with how sweet they are. I don't think they even realize it. Well, Ryk definitely doesn't; he's an oblivious idiot," she stated, nodding her head towards the door so that they could make their way towards Ana's.

"It's too cute, really. It's so obvious she has a thing for him, and he's the only one who doesn't know." He shook his head. "Which... is probably not the worst thing. I don't know exactly what it is, but I feel like those two really do have to get there themselves. Anyway, shall we get going? It's a fun spectator sport in any case."

“Truthfully," she began, heading towards the door and waiting for Kas to step out before locking it behind them. “It is something they'll have to figure out themselves, but at the same time, they might just need a gentle push. With Ryk, you can't push too much, otherwise it'll backfire." Cy knew Ryk enough to know that if someone were to try and force him to acknowledge his feelings, or even notice them, he would try his hardest to quash them. He wasn't allowed to have those kinds of feelings, but Cyrilla wanted Ryk to know that they were okay to have. It was still a lot of work, but it would be worth it in the end.

“In any case, that's plotting for another time," she grinned, instead, pushing the thoughts away for now. “Let's go see if the others are waiting for us," she stated as they made their way towards Ana's. It didn't take them long to reach the shelter by foot; even in the cold, it wasn't too bad. Cyrilla had made sure to dress accordingly with a black long-sleeved turtle neck, and dark blue puffer vest. She spotted Ryk outside as they approached, holding Icarus as he glanced down at something. Cy couldn't stop the smile on her face when she noticed it was Nev's wooloo, baaing at him.

“Oh my arceus, Ryk, what are you doing to that poor wooloo?" she stated, mostly in a jestful manner. Ryk glanced up towards them with pursed lips.

“Not a damn thing. Floof wanted to come outside and I volunteered to take her," he responded. “She doesn't want to go inside, now, though."

"I can fix that," Kas said confidently, apparently amused by Eryk's use of the pokémon's name. Pulling the second-to-last ball from his belt, he gave it a casual toss, and Meep appeared, hopping up and down in place a few times. "All right," Kas continued, clearly to the pokémon, "who wants to go inside and have snacks and then a cuddle pile?"

Meep bleated, the ball at the end of her tail lighting up with enthusiasm. It was well known that the two adorable sheep pokémon were friends, so the strategy, such as it was, wasn't unsound.

“I swear to arceus that if it isn't the other two that'll give me diabetes, it's Floof and Meep," Cyrilla stated, as she watched Floof nearly crash into Meep with enthusiastic charm. Ryk rolled his eyes, though, and merely led the way in towards Ana's as Floof rolled towards the door with Meep.

“Cyrilla, Kasimir!" Nev stated in her usual chipper tone. She waved at the two when they entered Ana's. “You can set the wrapping paper over there if you want, Cy," she added, pointing to the roll tucked under Cyrilla's arm.

“So, what have we missed so far?" she asked, glancing towards the others.

Ana beamed over at the both of them. "Not a lot, yet," she said. There was seasonal music playing from the living room television, but it was orchestral and rather soft, nothing obnoxious. "Snacks are in the oven, and Aidan's upstairs getting the boxes of decorations for me."

"Correction," Aidan said from the top of the stairs, making his way down with two large plastic tubs. "They have been got." He set them down in the hallway, taking the one down off the top of the other, so that both would be accessible. "Where's your tree? I didn't see it up there."

"Oh, it's out in the storage shed with the outdoor lights." She frowned a little, but Aidan shrugged.

"No problem," he said, brushing a bit of loose tinsel from his black turtleneck. "Rheinallt, you can help me get that stuff so it's only one trip."

"Aye, boss," Kas replied, snapping a surprisingly-good salute.

Aidan rolled his eyes, and the two of them headed out the back door.

"I kind of feel bad making you all do so much work," Ana said, still frowning.

Eryk pursed his lips together in Ana's direction and shook his head. “It's not a problem for us to help out, Ana," he stated, his tone a little softer than it usually was. Cyrilla hid the grin on her face behind her hand as she cleared her throat, and nodded her head in agreement.

“He's right," she began, placing the wrapping paper in the proper place, “it's not a problem and we like helping out. We're splitting the work, if you want to see it that way, so that we can all enjoy it."

Ana looked like she wasn't quite sure what to say to that, so she wound up simply nodding, her eyes falling to the ground.

“Oh, while they're getting the tree and lights, should we start sorting through the decorations or are we going to hang them all up?" Nev asked, as she glanced in Ana's direction.

"Um. Honestly I don't even know what's in there," she admitted. "It's all hand-me-downs from Aunt Lydia's house. She brought them by last year, but I never got around to putting any of them up. So maybe we should sort them and see what there is?"

“Sounds good to me!" Nev stated as she made her way towards the tubs Aidan had brought down. Cyrilla grinned to herself, though, as an idea struck her.

“Why don't Nev and I take one and you and Ryk rummage through the other one?" she suggested, glancing towards Eryk. He blinked before turning his attention towards Ana and shrug his shoulders.

“I don't see why not. Aidan and Kas can set up the tree while we go through these," he stated as he gestured towards the other tub that Cyrilla and Nev weren't near.

This is too easy.

The other two arrived back at that point, Kas with the tree and Aidan with another large box and the tree stand. Everyone moved their stuff into the living room and started sorting.

There were a range of traditional decorations inside: tinsel, tree lights, ornaments, candles and candelabras, and so on.

"Oh look! Snowglobes!" Ana seemed a little pleased with this development, pulling out a box that seemed to contain a Saffron City snowglobe. "It looks like there are ones for the whole region... what an odd thing to collect."

“Oh, if there are ones for the whole region, why don't we pick out ones that we're all from?" Cyrilla suggested, glancing towards Ryk. The two of them would get the Fuchsia one, of course. It would be a two-for-one. Nev, however, pursed her lips together.

“But I'm not from this region, originally," she stated as she glanced towards the others. “I'm from Jubilife City out in the Sinnoh Region."

“Are there snowglobes from other regions?" Eryk inquired, glancing towards Ana. “Kas is from the Orange Islands, too," he added, surprising Cy a bit that he'd remembered that. Cyrilla knew Ryk wasn't exactly the type to remember certain details about people if he didn't have to. The fact that he'd even mentioned that, it caused her to smile to herself a bit.

"I'm touched that you want to include me," Kas said, only sounding a little like he was joking.

"Saffron one would be mine then," Aidan said, taking it when Ana passed it to him.

She looked back down into the box, digging around for a bit before handing the Fuchsia one to Eryk. "Hm. It looks like there's a couple ones for Johto, and this one here seems to be from Kalos, but... I don't see either the Orange Islands or anything from Sinnoh."

"That's all right," Kas said. "Sis and I can rep Cinnabar, right?"

“Sure! We can represent Cinnabar," Nev replied as she glanced towards Kas. “It's probably not quite the same, but Cinnabar is still an island," she added.

“Alright, well we have globes for everyone! Where should we set them? Oh, Ana, do you have a fireplace? We can set them on top if you do," Cyrilla asked as she turned her attention towards Ana.

“Oh, do we have stockings for everyone, too? We can hang them up with the snowglobes!" Nev added, seemingly excited about the idea of stockings.

"The fireplace is right behind you, Cyrilla," Ana said with a touch of amusement. It was currently closed, and the TV was over the mantel, but it was in fact there. "And I don't know if there are stockings. I guess we should dig a little more in these boxes?"

She moved a little away from hers, though, adding the globe for Celadon City to the grouping of them without comment.

"Stockings, stockings..." Kas pushed some tinsel aside, rummaging through his and Cyrilla's box.

Cyrilla only surmised that Celadon was where Ana was from. Ana had, of course, never disclosed such details to them, but it didn't take genius to put two and two, together. She glanced towards the box Kas was rummaging through and smiled to herself a bit.

“Hm, it only looks like there are three stockings here," she stated soft enough that Kas could hear it. The others were close by, but with everyone focused on the other things, she had a sudden thought. “Maybe those four should share one of them, hm?" she stated, grinning at Kas as she nodded her head in the others' direction as discretely as she could.

Aidan rolled his eyes, apparently having heard them. "Joke's on you, little ninja. Three means you have to share, too, if you want your plot to work."

"Hm?" Ana glanced over. "What's going on?"

"Nothing too worrisome, Ana," Kas said, waving a hand. "Just a little math."

Cyrilla snorted softly at Aidan. He wasn't wrong, though. She would have to share with Kas, but she could do that. “That's fine by me," she retorted, reaching over Kas to grab the three stockings. “Now the question is, which one does everyone want to share? There is a red one, and a purple one," she stated, putting the obviously green one to the side.

“Purple," Ryk stated first, startling Cy for a second. She wasn't expecting him to answer first, however; she shrugged her shoulders, and tossed it towards him.

“I guess Big Brother Aidan is getting the red one to share with Nev," Cy stated as she tossed the red one in Aidan's direction.

“If you have markers, Ana, we can all write our names on them, too! Oh, if that's okay by you, of course. They're still yours," Nev suggested before turning in Ana's direction with a bright smile.

"I don't mind," Ana said, smiling a little. Her face was only slightly pink. "Oh, but... I have felt. So maybe we could make letters and stitch them on? It might look a little fancier."

“Oh, that'll be nice!" Nev stated as Cyrilla stiffled a laugh.

“What about glitter?"

Setting

Characters Present

Character Portrait: Cyrilla Niav Character Portrait: Kasimir Rheinallt
Tag Characters » Add to Arc »

0.00 INK

#, as written by Aethyia


December 21st
The Cloyster - Afternoon - Rainy
Kasimir Rheinallt


Kas narrowed his eyes at himself in the mirror. Despite the impression he gave, he wasn't, he thought, an especially vain person. He sometimes still had difficulty seeing himself as attractive, which was probably partly to do with the fact that it was himself, but also partly to do with, well... he hadn't always been much of anything to look at. Kind of the opposite. Childhood had been awful in some ways, adolescence even worse. Not that he was complaining; it could have been leagues worse. He knew plenty of people who had had it worse, these days.

But it still jarred him a little, every time he saw himself in a mirror and it... wasn't awful.

At the moment, however, his concern was slightly more specific. He was trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to picture himself with short hair. He'd been wearing it in the style of what his dad would call a 'beach bum' for most of the last decade, and he wasn't exactly sure what he'd even look like without it. Some part of him was in fact terrified that by some weird magic he'd suddenly look awful again, much as the vanity of that consideration rankled him.

Since when had he cared so much about shit like that?

Oh right. Since my entire life became a lie it was easier to tell if all the parts matched.

But... maybe if he did it, she'd feel a little less alone.

That made his mind up. Honestly, it had made his mind up yesterday, when he'd floated the idea of a haircut. He hadn't been thinking of anything drastic at the time, but... it wasn't like he hadn't noticed Cyrilla's reaction to her own haircut. Chances were it wasn't voluntary. So if there was even a chance this would help, well... it was only hair to him. It'd grow back even if it looked stupid.

Shrugging at himself, he exited his room and knocked on her door. "Hey Cy, you in?" He knew she was, but he didn't want to wake her if she was taking a nap or something.

There was a soft thudding sound on the floor, and when the door opened, it produced Diva. The lycanroc narrowed her eyes at Kas, however; Cyrilla appeared two seconds later, pulling a wireless headphone from her ear and smiled at him.

“Sorry, didn't hear you knock. I was putting some things away and cleaning," she stated as she opened the door and shooed Diva out of the way. “Oh, is it my turn to cook lunch today?" she asked.

He snorted. "Nah, that's been done for an hour. Was kind of wondering why you didn't go get any. Thought you might be napping." It was certainly one of his favorite pastimes, though he didn't think she was as much enthused as he was.

"I was thinking about our conversation yesterday. Any chance I could take you up on that offer of a haircut? It can wait if you're busy." Or he could just go to a shop like anyone else.

“Oh, shit, has it? I guess the cleaning spray hid the smell. Usually I can smell your food," she stated, huffing a little lightly. “And sure! I can do that for you," she continued, opening the door all the way. “Meet me in the dining room? I need to grab a comb and find the scissors real quick," she stated as she walked out of her room.

“Oh, and maybe put on a shirt you don't use often? Or take it off, either way, so you don't get hair on it. Hair is kind of hard to get off of clothes, like glitter," she snorted at the last part as she disappeared down the hallway, probably towards her bathroom.

Kas resisted the urge to raise an eyebrow. He supposed that was what those cape things at salons were for. He didn't much like the idea of getting hair on any of his shirts, but that was sort of the smaller issue next to a certain kind of ambivalence he was feeling.

On the one hand, it shouldn't really be a big deal to walk around his own apartment without a shirt. On the other, he kind of wanted to fluster her, but admitting that was a possibility was admitting that it was at least kind of a big deal. No—surely not. Cy had to be used to way worse than that. She was the one who suggested it. Surely it would barely even register, and while that might be a little disappointing, he was mostly glad she was that comfortable with him.

Yeah, his feelings were ambivalent all right.

Sighing, he peeled his shirt off, folding it as he took a seat at the dining room table. No need to be an idiot about completely normal shit. He'd grown up on Tangelo for arceussake. Shirts were completely optional. No one was going to care.

It had taken her a few minutes to find the scissors, it seemed, before she finally yelled, “found them!" She appeared a moment later, a comb and spray bottle in one hand, and a pair of scissors in the other. She arched a brow at him, a subtle pink shade crossing her face before she moved behind him. Kas could hear her clear her throat before she spoke again.

“Alright, Kasimir Rheinallt, what are you looking for, a trim?" she asked, running her fingers through his hair to loosen the tangles before running the comb through it. “Or do you want something completely radical?"

A guy could get used to that feeling. He'd always liked hands in his hair, and the faint prickle of nails on his scalp—none of which were appropriate thoughts to be having about his very platonic roommate. Kas cleared his throat, finding that he, too, had to fight down a light flush. Fortunately, his darker complexion masked it well, a fact he knew from experience.

"Well I don't want it right up to my scalp," he said, lifting a brow right back at her. "Probably around my nape? Something that gets it off my shoulders, anyhow. Whatever you want."

“Whatever I want, huh?" she stated in an amused tone. She hummed a soft note, though as she continued combing his hair. “Hm, do you trust me with your hair, Kas?" she asked, a hint of seriousness in her tone.

Despite himself, he leaned into it a bit. "Wouldn't have said that if I didn't," he replied honestly.

Did he sound as idiotic as he felt right now? He sure hoped not; he had an image to maintain. In particular, that of a charming, rakish friend and roommate who was not at all interested in forgetting the haircut and just—

Nope. Down, boy. Platonic. Roommate.

“Alright," she responded in a softer tone. She removed the comb from his hair and sprayed the water on it, probably to moisten it to make it easier to cut evenly. “I promise you're in good hands," she added before she began snipping at his hair. She pulled his hair softly between her fingers, continuing to cut away at it. She didn't say anything until she was finished, apparently concentrating intently on his hair cut.

“Let me go get a mirror, and you can tell me what you think," she stated, running her hand his hair once more before disappearing. When she reappeared, she was holding a small round mirror and held it out to him.

“It might be my biased opinion, but I think it suits you nicely, Kas."

He had to admit, it wasn't what he'd been worried about at all. The person in the mirror was still the one he was getting used to seeing, ink and defined features and all. Maybe someday he'd get out from the shadow of that kid he'd been, but for now he was content to not see him in every reflective surface.

"I like it," he replied honestly, shifting his eyes from the mirror up to Cyrilla. "Thanks, Cy; you do excellent work." He grinned at her, bright and genuine. "And now we match, right?" It was as much indication as he ever planned to give of why he'd decided to do this now of all times.

“Yep, we do, don't we?" she replied, rolling her eyes slightly with a smile on her face. “But what brought on the change, though? It's not quite warm enough to want shorter hair, and the length it was before, should have been more than enough for this winter. If you could even call it that," she asked, tilting her head slightly in an inquisitive manner.

“I mean, I'm not complaining; I was right when I said shorter hair would bring out a lot of your features. You look really handsome right now," she added, adverting her gaze slightly so she wasn't holding his.

"Do I?" He grinned with that bravado he didn't quite believe in, but he'd been fooling people so long he sometimes managed to fool himself, too. Resisting the urge to take her hand and tug her towards him was a gargantuan effort of will, enough so that he barely even realized he was answering the other question until the words were coming out of his mouth, some part of him looking for anything to grasp onto that wasn't his own stupidity.

"You didn't want yours, right?" he said, reaching up to tuck a little strand that had come loose from the top half behind her ear. "It's stupid, but I thought... maybe if I did it too, it might be something you didn't hate anymore?" It sounded absurd even to his own ears, but that had been his train of thought. He'd just... wanted to give her a different way to think about it. Make it into something she and a friend had in common, something they could joke about. Not something that she remembered as someone else choosing for her.

For a moment, she just stared at him. She looked like she wanted to say something, but couldn't seem to find the words. Her mouth parted as if she were going to say something, and still nothing came out. “You..." she finally managed a word, but it was easy to see that her bottom lip was trembling a bit. “You did this for me? Because I...." she couldn't seem to finish, sucking in too sharp of a breath that she swallowed thickly.

It was sudden, but she wrapped her arms around him, settling her head near the crook of his neck. Without his shirt on, he could feel something wet against his skin, and from the shaking of her shoulders, it was easy to tell she was crying. There were soft sniffles that followed, as well.

“You didn't have to do that, Kas. Just because I didn't want mine, doesn't mean you should have to cut yours for that reason. You're.... you're always so thoughtful," she spoke softly.

"Cy..." To be honest, Kas wasn't entirely sure what to do. It wasn't that he felt awkward exactly—if anything the weird part was that he didn't. Because the details that should have made it awkward just... didn't seem to matter. Instead, he wrapped his arms around her back and rested his cheek against the side of her head, carding the fingers of one hand through her hair.

The shit this woman had been put through. It infuriated and awed him at the same time. Infuriated him that those people should ever get away with what they'd done to her—of which cutting her hair was the least—and awed at her ability to still be the person she was in spite of them. "I didn't have to," he said, trying to explain something he didn't quite have the words for. "I wanted to." She was the reason he'd wanted to, to be sure, but it was neither burden nor obligation. How could he say that it was his privilege to be able to help in some small way? That he was trying, always, to find other things he might be able to do, to ease the burden a little?

“Kas," she began, not moving from her spot, “I don't deserve a friend like you. Someone so thoughtful and sweet shouldn't have to do or want to do those kinds of things for me." She pulled in a soft breath, and he could feel it when she released it.

“But.. I'm glad. So very glad that you are because this..." she finally pulled back from her spot, and it was easy to see that her tears hadn't quite stopped. Her eyes were a little red and puffy, but she'd shifted her hands to rest on the sides of his face. “I've never had friends like you, before. I've never had someone care as much as you do. Ryk cares, I know he does, but it's... not quite the same when it comes to you. You're the very reason I left my family because, for the first time in my life, I mattered to someone. Someone who was kind enough to show me that it was okay to be happy, and to want to be selfish enough to enjoy that happiness."

“It's still a lot of work, and I know it's going to be an uphill struggle, but... I'm glad to have that little respect back in my life," she stated, smiling through her tears. “To be honest, the only reason I did what I did was because it felt like that was the only real power and say I had in my life. It was something I chose, and no one else. Now... because of you, I don't have to do those things anymore. I don't have to feel like that's the only choice. Thank you, Kas." She pulled his face forward and placed a soft kiss to his cheek.

He swallowed thickly, feeling his face heat. There'd be no concealing the flush this time; it was much too obvious for that. Kas cleared his throat—he honestly couldn't remember the last time someone he wasn't related to had done something so... pure wasn't exactly the word. But it was sweet, something without an ulterior motive. Hardly the kind of kiss he was used to. In fact... this might be the first time. Maybe that was why he felt his heart kick up in his chest and something in his stomach flip over.

He set one of his hands atop one of hers on his face, using the other to carefully brush away her tear-tracks. "You do deserve it," he said, unsure how to respond to the rest but knowing this much for certain. "You do deserve it, and you do matter, Cy. Scout's honor." He managed half a grin at that, trying not to give himself away any more than he had to. She'd thrown him right off his equilibrium, talking like he'd had much of anything to do with... well to do with how she was now. How she was learning to live differently than she had before.

But that was impossible. He was just her friend. The hard work had been all her.

She huffed softly, sniffling before she smiled again. “Hm, thanks Kas," she stated, pulling her hands from his face and wiping away the rest of her tears. “I suppose since you cooked lunch, dinner's on me tonight? Well, not on me, but on plates and other such necessities," she grinned a little at the statement, even though the flush on her face was a little more prominent.

“Any suggestions as to what you want for dinner? I can make curry again, but... well, you might want something else since we had that like two days ago."

He laughed, the off-color joke effectively resetting the dynamic. Or at least... nudging it back into a workable spot. He suspected it wasn't ever going to quite be the same, and he wasn't yet sure what he made of that.

But it was an issue for later.

"You know, that's actually a trendy thing in some places. Naked sushi or whatever. Eating food off a beautiful woman." He winked, and stood. A little physical distance would probably help.

"Personally I think that sounds a little gross, and would much prefer curry, in a bowl, made by a beautiful woman. Luckily, you've just offered, and so I'm all set."

Cyrilla rolled her eyes good-naturedly and shook her head. “Hm, and we beautiful women just love eating said meals with handsome men. Actually, that's probably false, but I'll take it for now," she replied.

“Curry it is, though. Since I'm going to need the ingredients for that, I'm going to head down to the store, do you want to come with?" she asked, grabbing the scissors and spray bottle, perhaps, to put them away.

Kas reached up to ruffle his own hair, shaking out a few loose pieces. It'd be a little weird, getting used to the feeling of having so much less of it. Not bad, though. "Sure. Let me just put on a shirt and sweep really quick and then we can head out."