Setting
Skyva hurried to catch up to him, "You know... you can face your enemies... our enemies and still not be like them. You have been cold and distant, which is fine, it is a way of dealing with this, but at the same time you can't lose yourself. You let them win for one and then you end up like them. They didn't care who died, as long as they go what they wanted. How is that any different than what you are doing, Liam? I am telling you this because I know where it leads. I have killed pokemon before in my anger and I live with that guilt every day. I am trying to stop you from making the same mistake. I want revenge as much as you do. Maxin was just a kid. He didn't deserve this, but I won't let them have this affect over me. I won't become the monster I know I can be." She said and wiped the tears that had build up at the corner of her eyes.
"Now where is Soph?" She sighed and looked around. Skyva shoved her shaky hands into her pocket as she looked. Sophie came running and smiled. "Look who I am keeping! I am calling him Penny... he likes the name." She said and hugged him close. Skyva blinked, "Uhh... I am sure his owner wants him back." She said softly. Sophie looked at her and shook his head, "No.. he does not, why you think I have him?" She asked. Skyva rubbed the bridge of her nose. She walked up to them and leaned down, "Tell me why you don't like your previous owner." She said softly.
Before Skyva could think up a response, they were already upon Sophie and the newly proclaimed Penny. The Cinccino hung back, letting the two redheads handle the Panpour. As they talked, Liam couldn't help but reflect over what Skyva had told him, her concerns and her fears pertaining to him. Was he losing himself? he wondered, staring up at the tall skyscrapers around him.
Maybe Skyva did have a point. After all, she had gone through a similar situation he had. The death of a loved one brought forth an inner hatred for their entire species...one that didn't ebb for a few years...when she met Radegast and Maxin. Their own relationships with their respective Pokemon helped bring out the good in her, even if she didn't realize it. A part of him knew that Radegast, despite her own irritation for him, was a bigger influence over Skyva's perceived reality, even if she didn't realize this. Liam didn't know if he would have such an anchor to bring him back.
The Cinccino sighed silently and shook his head. He wouldn't let himself go that far.
For one, he only had one enemy...the Psychic Rebellion. The moment they were gone, he could feel like himself again. He knew that. For another, he already knew what Skyva had done and why she had done it. That knowledge alone was enough to make him wise to the potential pit fall he could steer towards and avoid it. Just the thought of turning into one of those monsters made him shudder.
I won't ever be like that... he rationalized, Not ever.
Meanwhile, Penny was chattering rapidly to the two girls, explaining his situation to them. "Well, ya see...Deante's kind of a new blood in the whole 'trainer' business. And when I mean new, I'm talkin' like two years too early. Somethin' about his parents want'n him to be all responsible or some shit. But this kid...this kid dumber than a pile of bricks! Kid can barely tie his shoes too, much less take care of me. I mean, how do ya think I made it all de way out here? All I had to do was roll a Poke past 'em and he took off runnin' after it. That's...kinda where the name comes from. I like to collect dem shiny coins. But anyway...yeah. Kid ain't ready for his first Pokemon yet. Do him and me a solid and, like, not bring me back to him. Cause things'll probably get worse down the line."
"Fine... but you better not cause us trouble, Penny. I will send you back to your old owner so fast." She said and waved her finger at him, a small smile creeping up on her lips. Sophie smiled brightly and hugged on Penny like a child would a teddy bear. "Aww Penny! We are gonna be best buds." She said and Skyve raised an eyebrow at the girl before turning back to her small furry friend. "So where to next, Liam?" She asked before leaning down and fixing his fur. "Maybe to a washroom so I can clean this fur... jebus." She mumbled.
Meanwhile, Liam raised a brow at the younger of the two redheads and her decision to keep the Panpour. He'd been holding back on reaching out to Sophie, always remembering her original mission and why she had joined Skyva in the first place. Since her outing, he'd been more than wary of her advances, sensing her change in demeanor and attitude. Yet, he still didn't accept it. Not completely anyway. He kept his distance, letting Skyva deal with her. In fact, he barely said two words to her on the weekly. He did keep his eye on her and how she moved in their group. She never tried anything.
However, Liam did notice she was one PokeBall short as of three months ago, not even a few days after they took on this job. And that also unsettled him.
The Cinccino felt a hand run through his fur and he jerked automatically, "Ey! It's fine!" he protested in regard to cleaning his fur, "And I think we should go ahead and report back to Chuck. If Sophie's gonna keep pain in the booteaux over there, we should probably report that we couldn't find him."
"You talk a mad game for someone who can't reach a ladder," Penny retorted hotly.
Liam glared back, "Keep talking and I find a bigger building to toss you off of."
That shut him up.
"Anyway," he went on, "It's best if Sophie doesn't follow us in there until she finds a PokeBall to stick him in. So you and I will go and get our next assignment."
Sophie gently patted her new pokemon, "You two need to play nice." She said.
Skyva blinked and nodded, "yeah you two play nice. I won't have you two snipping at each other for the whole trip... and Penny... you can use a bath too. Hell... we might as well wash all of our pokemon tonight since that will be a thing." She sighed and then agreed that Sophie and Penny should hang back. "Actually while we do that shouldn't she go get a pokeball for him?" She asked Liam while gently poking his cheek and smiling contently.
As they began turning around and heading towards their destination, Penny rubbed his light blue chin, "So ya think I can go into a different PokeBall than the one I used with Deante? Is that possible?"
While Sophie took Penny to the Pokemon Center, Liam and Skyva walked down the crowded Castelia City streets they've recently started calling home. The Cinccino was already fairly familiar with the city before he started helping out the PokeCatchers, but since then, he's retained a perfect memory of the layout, including the hidden passageways and short cuts they've used time and time again to catch the escaping Pokemon. The tall buildings that seemed to swallow them now acted as pillars of guidance, telling him where he was at and where he needed to go.
This time around, they marched right up to one of the smaller skyscrapers, the familiar black sleek building of PokeCatcher HQ. They didn't even hesitate, pushing the door open with practiced force and walking into the bland front desk area where their assignment coordinator was organizing papers and placing them in his filing cabinet.
They both were used to Chuck at this point, a gruff man who was probably ten years younger than he looked. His salt and pepper hair was usually slicked back with excessive amounts of hair gel, his brown, sunken eyes always communicated the lack of sleep he got. His outfit was as bland as the rest of the place, a blue collar man with a blue collar job. He wasn't smoking this time, at least, but that didn't give anyone entering the reprieve of lingering cigarette smoke that was plastered all over the walls. Besides, his attempts usually lasted about a week and this would probably be no exception.
"No dice this time 'round?" he asked earnestly, referring to the lack of a Panpour being presented in front of him. There was a hint of surprise in his voice and that was because Skyva, Sophie, and Liam were rising in popularity at PokeCatchers HQ due to their inspiring efficiency and high success rate. A failed case happened very rarely when taken on by these three.
Skyva walked with her furry friend through the familiar streets. It had become a temporary home for her, though she had been itching to leave for a few days now. The city had been nice, but she was always at ease in the woods. The two walked into HQ and there was Chuck, the gruff man she tried to become friends with while here. When he asked no dice she pouted and shook her head before laying it on the counter. "I feel like we are slipping. I mean... look at Liam... he is a darn dust puff..." She sighed and wiggled in her spot.
The Panpour climbed a tree, scurrying up to one of the lower branches and sitting down, feet dangling below him, "So where to next? We waitin' for the other redhead to show up?"
"Naaaah," Chuck scoffed, "Well, I believe ya when ya say Liam looks like a dust puff. But I don't think you're slippin'. Everyone has an off day. Everyone. Hey, I mean...y'all are some of the best PokeCatchers we got! And I mean that." He flashed them an earnest grin, "Only problem I see with you guys is sometimes you bring back the Pokemon...injured."
Skyva would know what Chuck was referring to. They talked about it a few times, discussing the importance of fighting the ones who resist capture, but trying to keep them as healthy as possible when they're returned to their owners. With typical PokeCatchers, that didn't happen too often. But the rate of injured captures was rather high with Skyva and company. And of course Skyva knew why. After all, most of the Pokemon return with a lot of cuts and there's only one Pokemon among them that carried a sword everywhere he went.
"But anyway," Chuck went on, "Don't let failure be a means to start quittin' on yerself. Ya learn from yer mistakes and ya move on. Ain't nothin' more to it. Now, you guys ready for another assignment?"
Skyva looked down at Liam, "I told you, you look like a damn puff ball." She sighed before sweetly smiling at the old man behind the desk. She had played that off really well. If there was a badge for acting she would have taken it proudly. Then he began to talk about the injured pokemon and her smile disappeared. "Yes, sir." She said softly. "We are ready for our next assignment." She thought about it a lot. If he used his sword again against another one of their assignments she was going to get in the way. Hopefully, he could see that his way of doing things was wrong. Maybe seeing another friend hurt, this time by his own hands, would do him some good.
Liam didn't respond at her jab towards his appearance, but did cross his arms and stare down the hallway to their left.
"Alright," Chuck nodded as he presented the file to Skyva, "This here's a wilding. A female Nidorina if I'm not mistaken. There were many sightings of her causing all kinds of trouble up in Nimbasa City, but apparently, she's made her way down here. It'll be your job to go and find her and bring her back here so she can be relocated somewhere else. And don't be afraid to use force if ya have ta. From the reports I've gathered, she's a nasty 'un."
Liam's ears perked up at the sound of that. Not that he had a preference between the take down missions and the rescue missions, but he was able to unleash some pent up aggression towards the brutes...a facet of the job he did enjoy very much. He wondered if Chuck knew that and had specifically saved this case for them for that reason. Even so, at the end of the day, a job was a job.
Skyva took the file and looked it over before mentally sighing. She didn't want Liam to be fighting and used it as an excuse to harm another Pokemon. She glanced at the small Pokemon before looking back up at Chuck. "Thanks, Chucks. Will that be all for right now?" She asked, wondering if he could put Liam off this case or not.
"Don't have apples too often," he mentioned to the smaller redhead as he walked up to her side, giving her the puppy dog stare, "Got any more?"
"That's it for right now, other than the news," Chuck grunted and tossed a newspaper in front of them, "Something you kids should be aware of, I guess. I don't remember if you were here a few months ago when that random blast of energy nearly hit the city, but they reportedly found another sighting. This time, it hit something." His finger rested on the picture on the front page, the charred remains of a structure with a smoldering residue left over. The thing that was most concerning was the size of the black circle it created as it practically covered the entire area. The headline read "Mysterious Blast Engulfs Mansion outside Fuchsia City."
Liam turned around to the news and was struggling to see the article, but couldn't from his vantage point.
"They say they don't know whether or not it's the same beam from the one that passed over Castelia or not. Some people are going back and forth about it. Arguin' about whether it's bigger than the one that passed over us or not. Either way, y'all be careful out there until they find the cause of these, ya hear? Would be a shame to lose you guys to something like that. I like you guys, more than ya know."
There was a genuine grin on his face this time, showing sincerity behind his gruff words and a warmth that usually wasn't there, "Now y'all best be steppin'."
Skyva blinked when Chuck said something about the news and then looked over to see what he was talking about. Her mouth dropped a bit when she saw the picture. Her eyes darted to the small Liam who wanted to see and gently picked him up before setting him down on the counter. They were back and had given away where they were, which in a way was perfect for them. They had a lead, "It looks... a bit bigger." She said softly before shaking her head. "Thank you for showing us and giving us the new file." She said and scooped up Liam and the file. "Is it okay if I take this newspaper, Chuck?" She asked.
"I dunno. I know some moves, I guess," he quipped, "I'll fight if I have to. But I like to have fun and move around, y'know. Play some jokes. Ey, here's an idea! What should we do to the Cinccino when he gets back? We can take that there banana peel and leave it someplace for him to slip on. That'd be funny!"
"By all means," Chuck nodded. "I've read through it all anyway."
Liam was studying the picture as he read the article, his eyes growing tenser and tenser. He was strangely excited, almost as if his aura had changed completely from dismissive to giddy. Chuck noticed the atmosphere change and glanced back at Skyva.
"Your little friend gonna be alright?" he asked her.
Skyve watched the small pokemon aura change the more he stared at the picture. She looked up at Chuck when he asked her if he was alright and she sighed, "I sure hope so. Thanks, Chuck." She said and scooped the cinccinco in one arm and grabbed the paper and file in the other. She waved the papers a bit in a bit to wave at Chuck and hurried out. "So we have a lead, the decided to come out of hiding, but this doesn't mean you can go crazy, you hear?" She said and wen to go meet up with Sophie.
"So what kind of team is she packing, then?" he asked, "They nice, they mean, they a mix of both?"
Liam glanced back at the article and smirked, "I know that. I can contain myself." He shot back, defensively. Skyva walked down the street a few faces.
"But do you realize what this means? Our first clue in three months! This is awesome! I never thought I'd get the chance to see them again and now our patience has been rewarded!" he glanced up at Skyva, more excitement in his eyes then there had been in a good long while, "We need to pack and start heading out! I bet one of these boats will take us to Fuchsia City!"
Skyva listened and nodded, "Mmm yeah I know, but don't you think we should do this one case before we head out? Plus it gives us enough time to plan something out or rather how about you start to pack up with Sophie and Penny while I hash this case out real quick. It shouldn't take me long." She said softly. "Does the blast look bigger to you?" She asked and looked at the paper. "I mean... if it is... that means a lot more trouble." She sighed and rolled her neck. "If we can just get ahold of one of the team members..." She mumbled.
Liam's eye twitched, a sign that he completely dejected the idea she was proposing, "Are you kidding me? You really want to do this one last job? The trail could be cold by the time we get there if we don't leave now." He sighed irritably. "I mean, maybe not. I'm sure we'll be able to find something over there, but even so. The more time we waste, the less likely we're gonna end up finding these guys." He closed his eyes, trying to think, like he was calming himself down.
"Alright," he finally said, "How about this? I'll let you decide whether we take this case or take off to Fuchsia City. But if you're picking the case, I'm coming with you. We can let Sophie and the Panpour get things ready while we look for the Nidorina. You said you didn't like to battle, so that's what I'll do. From what we've heard, she isn't going down without a fight."
Skyva saw the twitch and she knew he was going to be a bit annoyed or pissed, really, about it, "Chuck gave us this case and since we didn't bring Penny back it is the least we, or I can do." She said and thought about him actually helping her. It was true, she didn't care to fight, but it couldn't have been too bad. If Liam got too aggressive she would jump in, literally. "Fine... but don't go over board on the attacks." She said and found Sophie and Penny.
"Hey so... we have a hit on where the rebellion is at." She told Sophie and handed her the paper. Sophie took it and read, frowning a bit. "But we are taking the last case, you and Penny need to head back over and pack. We will meet you there then take off right after. Since someone thinks the trail will run dry." She said and eyed Laim.
Sophie nodded and packed her things before looking at Penny and tapping the ball, "Just until we get to where we are staying and then when we leave the city, promise." She said softly.
Skyva didn't waste time and headed toward where the Nidorina was last seen.
But before Sophie could answer, Skyva and Liam were approaching. He could barely make out the tail end of their conversation, which was Liam saying, "I'll use whatever force is necessary to take her down." The Panpour visibly shuddered at the thought of the Cinccino's tactics, but had a much clearer understanding of why that was the case.
A few moments later, Skyva and Liam were upon them, laying down the news of what they discovered and explaining their future plans. Penny stayed out of it for the most part, unsure of exactly what they were talking about. He remained dormant until Sophie made a notice to him to get back in the PokeBall...a move he was a lot more receptive of now that he was in the company of these two.
"I gotcha," he shrugged nonchalantly, "You take care of what ya need to. I'll be there when ya need me." The red light engulfed the Panpour and then he was gone. Liam eyed Sophie curiously, but said nothing as he took off after Skyva, who was already on the run.
"Hey, wait up!" he called out to Skyva, "Damn...making me chase you all the way across the city."
Skyva stopped running when she heard him yelling and laughed a bit, "I am sorry, but you look so adorable when you run after me." She teased before scooping him up and continued running. "So how are we going to approach it? You are going to just start beating it up off the bat or am I going to get a chance to try and coax it into coming with us?" She asked.
Liam sighed again, not wanting to smile or laugh at that. but finding the urge to do so harder and harder to push aside. "Not adorable," he grumbled, "Manly as hell..."
But he allowed himself to be picked up and they kept moving. As they did, he went over his strategy, "Skyva, I'm pretty sure this Nidorina isn't going to be convinced by reason. She doesn't sound like a mischief maker. She sounds like she could seriously hurt someone right off the get-go."
Skyva burst out into laughter, "Oh yes... my bad... very manly much macho. All the lady cinccinos will be swooning." She giggled and listened to his strategy. She sighed, "How about this, I TRY first and then you can come in and do your thing, but try to only use the force that is needed. I won't hesitate to jump in the middle of it if I have to. Balance is what is going to help us stop this rebellion. You go too much and you end up hurting the ones you love or your self... same as going too little." He said and hugged him close like a teddy bear. "I don't need to lose any more of my friends, okay?" She said and rubbed under his chin.
"So do you think she can convince them to stop what it is that they're doing?" he asked Sophie, "I mean...what do you say to those power hungry monsters?"
Liam sighed back, emotionally, "But I can't lose any of my friends either. I would never forgive myself if something happened to you because I couldn't get there in time or if I make the wrong call. That's why I'm as willing to go up against others as I am. I know you don't like to fight, so I do it for you. This Nidorina...she sounds like a fighter. I just..."
He had to stop, choking on his words as a little bit of emotion came out in a little tremble of his tone. He looked away, not wanting to even look at Skyva, not willing to compromise his facade. For a moment, he didn't speak. He just kept staring at the ground as they walked. His sword dangled in his hand, but he still had the foresight to keep it from cutting Skyva accidentally.
"Fine," he finally stated, "We'll try it your way, first." He stared back at Skyva, a blazing determination in his eyes, "But I'm not going anywhere. I'll be right by your side, ready to defend you if something happens."
Her true mission... gather intel on this Planet and to send anything useful to the fleet even if she had to smuggle it out. Alenia took in a breath and opened up a comm "This is the Ebon Star... in need of repair and refuel... requesting landing clearance."
Turning off the comm she muttered "If that damn droid hadn't been sloppy we wouldn't be in this mess." as she turned her ship towards Ruula.