TW: disturbing language, kidnapping, graphic violence involving guns/knives, blood, death

setting: post-war
this is the grand finale of lulu’s relationship with her old gang, which i need to update in her bio as her backstory has evolved into something much more severe. she has run from an international mob and arms smuggling ring. attracted to the inflated market during wartime, they expanded to hoenn and located her by total chance during a mission in rustboro.



it was a crisp fall evening, and it nipped at her, stealing strands of her hair from the shadows of her hood. rain poured gently on the ground. she’d just left dorian westcliff ’s nightclub, having shared an hour and a drink with the ultraviolent man she’d gradually grown fond of. the lights were faded in the distance as she rode a petite rat bike through dark streets and alleyways. she’d become more comfortable as time had passed since her last run-in with a dragon in rustboro. time had emboldened her, at least enough to get out some. the last shot of tequila warmed her despite the wind in her face.

it might’ve been a great night if it hadn’t all went down from there. she hadn’t noticed the man who had slunk out of the club behind her. he got into an inconspicuous black sedan with tinted windows, which sat in a dimly lit corner of the parking lot. it crept after her, and then turned.

she heard it before she saw it; the revving of an engine as she came out of the alleyway, and then, the next she knew, she was on the ground, the car having clipped her wheel. she groaned, the world turning for a second before she rolled back up and got her bearings. she then felt the hands descending on her, grabbing her up, quickly frisking and disarming her. she kicked wildly, and tried to yell out, but a hand was slapped firmly over her mouth until they threw her into the car unceremoniously.

when the hand shoved her face away, she spat. “fuck you!” and then they shut the trunk, and everything went dark.

the urge to scream was strong, but it didn’t last. eventually, she began breathing deliberately, survival instincts finally grounding her. her hands explored in search of something useful. nothing. claustrophobia began gripping her to a degree she’d never quite felt before. panicking, she began unleashing a string of kicks and punches, which ultimately only served to bloody her knuckles on the thinly carpeted metal.

every stoplight made her heart lurch. on the fifth stop, she felt the car bounce some from the relief of heavy bodyweight, and heard the muffled impact of the car doors as they were casually slammed shut. finally, she heard the latch, and hazy starlight suddenly flooded over her crunched up body. she went to throw a punch like a jack in the box as the trunk swung open, but someone grabbed her hand out of the air and then quickly manhandled her to her feet. “stop fighting.” he barked. a woman nearby laughed at her. “you dumb bitch, let’s see you run again. i’ll shoot you in the head myself.”

she then raised lulu’s beloved sword cutlass at her, which she’d grabbed off the ground during the bike “accident”. she aimed it at lulu, who was dumbstruck at the sight, and the yellow-haired woman pretended to shoot it with a taunting ‘pew’ sound from her painted red lips.

suddenly, a rage washed over her. “do it, then!” she growled through gritted teeth, pulling at the leash that was the man’s vice grip on her shoulders. the woman only smiled maliciously, out of reach, gesturing the gun to the path behind lulu. “walk. nicely.”

initially expecting to turn to face some ominous field, or perhaps some obscure warehouse parking lot, instead she found herself still in the city, facing a unassuming brick building, built closely between other similar structures. all too suddenly, she knew where she was, without ever having been there. the nest.

one of them knocked on a door, lowly giving a password through it like a speakeasy. it looked a bit like one on the inside. there was mahogany here, and green velvet there. several dragons lounged, their respective weapons not far off from each. a group sipped liquor and played cards at a table.

some of them looked up. there were mixed expressions, some recognizing her, others not yet filled in. the group walked past the heavily tattooed lot, lulu no longer resisting much. as they made their way through the hall, one of them walking beside her spoke up. “you know, rinc cried before ellio bashed his face in. then again, i guess dying alone like that’s pretty sad.”

a surreal sensation that felt both hot and cold all at once overtook her body, and after the initial shock of the news, she whipped her head to the side in a swift headbutt, letting out a fierce cry in defense of her lover’s honor. “shut up! don't fucking talk about him!” her skull caught the man on the lip, and he stumbled back a couple of steps, bringing a finger to the blood that welled from a small wound. he sighed, taking a moment, and then swiftly brought the butt of his pistol down on her cheek. she winced, slouching some in the larger man’s hands before shaking it off.

the man stared at her and then smoothed a hand through his hair coolly and continued walking ahead of them. “piece of shit.” she muttered breathily. he then turned and a fist shot straight into her face, splintering her nose. she gasped and sputtered blood. still glaring, gritting her teeth through the pain. she spat some of it at his feet, but did nothing more.

“are you done?” he asked, seeming unimpressed and annoyed. he got in her mangled face. “natalia wants you alive, but i swear to arceus, i will cut you up and feed you to my dog. try me again.” his eyes locked hers in a stalemate, her breath heavy, head swimming a bit. up until that point, she’d thought natalia was overseas, still in galar, in motostoke. on the contrary, she was right below their feet, about to dine on a steak in front of a comfy fire.

they began heading down the hallway again, lulu dragging her feet a bit here and there. eventually, they descended stairs, down an embellished rug that stretched on forever, and went through a door.

and then they met eyes. from across an unnecessarily long table, the queen sat, a rather beautiful woman with dark, cascading hair and onyx eyes that burned holes into every soul they crossed. a single scar stretched over one of them, giving her appearance a sinister edge. her hands clasped on propped elbows in a formal fashion. lulu’s blood dripped onto the expensive rug. she noted the steak sitting in front of the woman, and she briefly thought of Sénon Game ’s generosity—one of her few friends, who would never know what had happened. on that note, she thought of her brother, Cillian Quinn , her only family—but she supposed she’d already warned him.

the older johto native smiled as though lulu were an old friend, and spoke with a heavy accent of her own. “mustang. there you are. so good to see you alive and—” she assessed her beat up face and dead expression. perhaps well wasn’t the right word. “hm. well, alive.” she concluded.

abandoning her steak for the moment, she rose from the table and picked up a still lit cigar from a nearby ashtray, puffing on it briefly, regarding lulu with a smirk. “you look like you need a smoke.” she blew a cloud into her face, agitating the wounds. then, she took it and placed it in lulu’s loosened lips painfully, patting her bruised and bloodied cheek and only pulling it back away when lulu was hacking coughs. natalia turned her back, black heels walking comfortably in the other direction, taking slow, deliberating footsteps before turning again.

“i’m sure you can imagine, there are some things i want to know, mustang.” her hand glided across the table nonchalantly. “if my dinner gets cold before you tell me, i’ll put a bullet between your eyes.”

lulu looked around the room. dragons stood guard, relaxed, but with guns in hand and ready to start shooting at any sudden movement. natalia snapped her fingers, and red lights beamed from the fists of a couple of her captors. lulu’s solrock, emboar, and scyther were released into the room, confused, looking around and assessing the situation. when they saw their trainer injured and distressed, they lunged forward, but just as quickly found themselves lassoed and subdued with steel chains and held similarly at gunpoint. lulu glared, gritting her teeth again, as her team made low, distressed noises at her.

“come here.” the mob boss’s tone was suddenly biting. it was a command.

lulu felt a gun push roughly into her back, sending her forward. she felt each step, feeling in her heart that they might be her last on earth. when she came to face natalia again, the older woman brushed lulu’s hair out of her face gently. “i remember when i took you in. a rich little brat, trying to be something she wasn’t. but, lo and behold, you got what you wanted, didn’t you?” her hand went to then hold her by the chin. there had been a time she’d been like a mother to her. she'd turned her into a monster.

lulu said nothing, yanking her chin away. the woman continued, moving to the real topic at hand.

“ultimately, i know why you ran. you watched spade go free, and then be shot like a dog in the backseat—just another liability. you’ve always been a quick learner, i’ll give you that.” she took a puff from her cigar again and then set it back in the ashtray. “but you should know as well as anyone, my girl, that a motherfucker can run to the end of this earth and then all the way to hell, and i will still find them.”

“riggs, you may begin.” the man she addressed pulled the scyther up by its chain and held a knife to its throat. natalia’s eyes never left lulu’s, intimately close. “you will tell me what you told them, now.”

lulu scrunched what she could of her face, trying to glare but grimacing instead. “i never told them a damn thing.”

“don’t lie to me, mustang; you know how this goes.” she snapped a finger, and instead of across the throat, the man’s knife came down over one of the scyther’s wings. a grating cry of pain left the pokemon as it fell to the floor. lulu’s heart sank into her stomach.

“i’m not lying.” she said, her brain not grasping the scenario she’d seen played out so many times before. those three words never worked, and bad things always followed.

“what a shame.” natalia nodded to riggs. the knife came down again, this time on the other wing. another cry, though weakened. natalia shook her head, and reached down for her own gun, checking the chamber ominously.

then, something in lulu snapped. something that had been bending, straining her entire life.

she reached suddenly for the steak knife on the table, prepared to die to take her opportunity. without hesitation, she slammed the serrated blade into the woman’s throat with a primal yell and then yanked it back out, not expecting to live to see the blood. but the bullets never came.

looking up, she found a glowing shield formed around her—solrock’s REFLECT defending her. bullets ricocheted off of it, a few bodies falling in the wake of their trajectory. natalia gasped, holding her throat and stumbling over a chair. blood pooled on the carpet. guns then unloaded on the solrock, but it did little, and, after realizing this, the pokemon began pulling at its restraints wildly.

as those standing guard were momentarily distracted by the unruly pokemon, the shield faded gradually, and lulu took her chance to bolt for a gun which she pulled from the hand of a fallen body, the grip still warm. a shootout erupted, and she ducked behind the table. the pokemon ripped free, however, the scyther was quickly finished off with a string of bullets before it could attack. lulu watched in horror, but with no time to grieve in the moment, she kept moving, bullets dropping a few dragons. her hoennian death count had risen from 0 to 5 in less than a minute.

her pokemon were free, and the emboar went to use HAMMER ARM on a man with a gun aimed at lulu, who shot blindly as he looked over, turning to unload on the tall pig pokemon before it could hit. the pokemon fell, fading quickly as the scyther had.

lulu didn’t feel pain at first, only a strange burning sensation, pushing outward from a hole. a bullet had passed clean through her shoulder. it took a moment to process, and a sharp exhale left her lip as a hand came up to wipe her shirt, already soaked in blood when she pulled it back. “fuck.” she managed. her gun lifted again at the man, who was running out of the room to recruit more gunmen. as he went for the stairs, she shot him in the back, and then grabbed another gun.

lulu then staggered to the table, and pulled out the far end chair, disturbing the pool of her old boss’s blood. grabbing a pokeball that had been kicked across the ground during the chaos, she recalled her remaining solrock, who was thoroughly traumatized. “thank you. goodbye.” she told the capsule in her hand.

she slouched some in her seat, vision hazy, sitting there between a hot fire and a cold steak. her face was obscured by a string of smoke that wafted to the ceiling from a dead woman's cigar. she held the gun in her hand at the ready with her good arm—she’d go out shooting.