she’d seen them as soon as they’d entered: two white shapes, one human, one bird in a hat. her brow furrowed, and her heart skipped a beat. fuck. here we go, rustboro. little did she know.

the smog got thicker around them, pluming opaquely as the wings flapped. they were just going to push their way through. they were here with a purpose—no one would have just stumbled in to a building full of noxious fumes. this thought only served to make her heart race more.

shouldering her gun closer, she exhaled sharply and willed her legs to move, eyes scrutinizing the person’s edges for any shape of a weapon.

weezing had also taken quick notice of the disturbance, and went to confront the duo. lulu’s rubber boots carried her softly across a track that ran high around the building as she tried to get a better view, still out of sight. she soon made her presence known, however.

“weezing, GYRO BALL!”

the pokemon barreled forward out of the smog at the intruders, hoping to sucker punch them, man or pokemon, or both, whatever it ended up hitting.

the meeting in the foreman’s office paused for just a moment, hearing a faint commotion, before shrugging it off and continuing.

the weezing righted itself after the impact, assessing the damage and then squaring up again.

however, a command never came, as lulu was on the move even quicker now. catching the sight of a pokemon heading through the smog, she went to intercept it before it could get any closer to the office.

sliding to a stop and throwing out a hand to the ground to balance herself, she wound up crouched in front of the croagunk with the gun pointed straight at it from a short distance away. dust fell around her. she was quick on her feet. “lookin' for me?”

the devil on her shoulder and her empty wallet told her to shoot it down, but she didn’t. in battling more lately, she’d developed a sort of empathy for pokemon that she hadn’t previously possessed. bullets were for people.

growling at her own bleeding heart, she dodged around the croagunk and ran in the direction of her weezing and the rest of their unwelcome company, hoping the croagunk would follow. her team was not equipped to battle in thick smog. perrserker was immune to the poison, but its eyesight wouldn’t cut it.

ordering the koffing to fall back on her way across a long conveyer belt, she eventually hopped off of it on the other side and broke the smog. her gun was then aimed at sénon, her eyes looking up from the scope as she no longer needed it.

what was potatohead doing here?

“you lost?”

the gun didn’t move. she blinked, shocked, and hoped it wasn’t apparent; hoped her identity wasn't either. who was this guy? ’i don’t like to guess at strange behavior’ he’d said. no shit.

unable to bring herself to shoot him, either, for whatever reason, she reached in her pocket and pulled out a couple of pokeballs, throwing them out. it still wouldn’t bother her to rough them up a bit if they insisted on staying.

a perrserker and golisopod appeared. the galarian meowth had been born ready for a dual, and it showed. it looked crazed, staring down what it could see of the murkrow, out for blood.

“you should leave.” she warned sénon, still not knowing his name. she'd only say it once.

she watched the pokeball drop behind his feet and glared at him flatly. ballsy son of a bitch.

lulu lowered her gun and backpedaled at the mass of the gyarados as it appeared before them, matching perrserker’s aggression and trumping its size by five or six meters. it didn’t take a beat for her to realize she needed to move.

narrowly evading the water, she caught a glimpse of the brick moving next to her. she supposed that was fair. shot for a shot. should’ve killed him when she had the chance. should've taken his money, first off.

“hit it with shells!” she pulled herself up.

the golisopod reacted with RAZOR SHELL, sending jagged exoskeletons hurling towards the back of the gyarados that had attacked its trainer. she pointed at the viking cat, “perrserker, get in its head!”

the galarian brawler emitted a swirling purple aura that grew from a rippling black abyss on the floor. red sparks scattered around it, and it took on a possessed look, using DARK PULSE. its horrible, maddening energy spread towards their opponents, doing whatever damage it would, but focusing on the gyarados.

“weezing, go find that fucking frog!” she didn’t know what they were here for, but she hadn’t forgotten the creeping ninja he’d set loose in their house of business.

it groaned enthusiastically and set off into the smog.



back in the office, things were also heating up. a rocket-owned gastly neared the face of the counterfeiter, who sat as far back in a chair as his body would allow him to, turning his head away at an uncomfortable angle. his cohorts had been similarly subdued.

“thank you for bringing these to us, gentlemen.” a voice purred. “you’ll be staying here while we take our leave.”

his hand placed a still-burning cigarette in an old ashtray as they turned their backs, loading crates onto a dolly to move to the loading bay. the pokemon remained guarding their assignments.

TW: GUN VIOLENCE


she eyed the gyarados for a hair of a second before her boots slapped the dirty ground after him, watching in her scope and hoping the devil would grab him by the heel and trip him up somewhere. it didn’t happen.

“handle it!” she called back to her pokemon. the perrserker didn’t need to be told twice. an alien-sounding, metallic battle cry ripped from its core, and it launched itself up and forward towards the serpentine body, delivering a hard THROAT CHOP. the golisopod, however, true to its nature, took a step back without its trainer to witness its cowardice. it used IRON DEFENSE instead of attacking, a silver sheen flashing over its shogun arachnid body.

as they were running, with her scope on sénon for the sole sake of tracking him, she didn’t notice her weezing until it was sailing past them, the force of a double blow sending it into a crumbling wall to the outside. it went straight through, light suddenly filling the dark and clean(er) air filtering out the smog. lulu’s mouth gaped behind her mask. fuuuck. [break][break]

in the office, the sound of the wall being blown out was finally enough to alert the oblivious group that something was amiss. everyone looked up, caught off guard, except the dragon, who had been waiting for his chance. he was used to loud noises and unforeseen destruction, and was not startled easily; desensitized.

taking his chance as the haunter in front of him looked away, he grabbed the briefcase leaning against a chair leg, and slipped out of the seat. in a second, an uzi was in his fingers, fitting perfectly with the callouses of his hand. with a gleam in his eye that made it clear it wasn’t his first rodeo, all four other men found themselves switching off staring down the barrel of the gun. he moved for the crates and proceeded to collect everything that would fit in the briefcase and left out the door, leaving the rest for whoever managed to take it. noticing the weezing on its way back in the hole, heading for him, he began running in the opposite direction, deeper into the factory.

poking their head out the door after him, the rockets quickly made their decision based on the trajectory of the gunman.

“leave her. she’s not worth it.” the other nodded, not hesitating.

they headed out the hole in the wall created by the weezing before sénon or lulu could get there, wheeling the dolly out quickly with what was left of the stones and leaving the pokemon behind to watch the counterfeiters, only calling to them “time to go!” when they had reached the truck. the pokemon faded through the walls, leaving the remaining men to then bolt out the hole themselves, leaving lulu, sénon, and a dragon.[break][break]

in the chaos, focusing on sénon, lulu hadn’t noticed her superiors leave. she did, however, catch another man running past with a gun.

suddenly, lulu changed directions, deciding sénon was less important than a man with a briefcase running for the door.

the first gunfire left lulu’s gun, hitting various things as they moved through dystopian looking machinery. bullets were returned in a dramatic exchange.

around a corner, a koffing was headed to TACKLE the man, but with unfortunate timing, it collided with lulu as she came out of a blind spot. her hood having blown back during the chase, her mask, cracked loose, was knocked from her head. she slid across the floor and made impact with a wall—again. she was not unconscious, but she didn’t get back up. her gun was more than an arm’s length away. she glanced at it, and then back at the gun that was still pointed at her, feeling her mortality.

but the bullets never came.

instead, she was met with a sick smile. it was the face of revelation. her heart sunk.

“lulu!” he exclaimed, in a similar accent, far enough away to project his voice, but close enough to see her face. “what a surprise! you just can’t quit fuckin’ up, can ya?”

she stayed put, not blinking, looking dead in the soul.

he grinned. “i’m getting a promotion.” he’d leave her, knowing someone else that would relish in the opportunity to pick her off. he slipped out an aluminum door that shut behind him.

suddenly ripping out a scream that held a lifetime of rage, lulu willed her body across the floor to grab her gun and emptied the rest of the clip on the door, swiss-cheesing it, but there would be no body falling on the other side. he was already gone, like a ghost, escaping on a corviknight.

and then there were two (in addition to a group of confused, aggravated pokemon). she sat there, her processes frozen in panic suppressed under a mechanically blank expression. the gun dropped out of a loose wrist. her body hurt. she didn’t look up for sénon. she wouldn’t have noticed him if he was meters away. time had stopped.