Angelo is spinning his pedal, watching the chain link slowly click around as he confirms its smooth security, when the sound of someone approaching alerts him. When he rises and turns, he’s met with a taller, broader guy with tattoos visible on his arms; not exactly looking like the model figure of a ranger which the media would wish you to believe. He thinks he prefers seeing a ranger like this, at least he had some individuality, rather than being a cookie cutter. Plus his ink was pretty baller. If he weren’t so indecisive and lacking in funds, the Johtonian liked to think he’d sport some himself.

Therefore, needless to say, the blue-eyed man didn’t greet the ranger with a look of intimidation and instead offered him an outstretched hand in greeting. “That’s me. Guessing you’re the ranger, right? Holland?” He had to memorise a lot of addresses and names in the day to day, so his temporary partners alias rolled off his tongue easily, like it had already been burrowed deep into his skull rather than the truth that he had only learned it this morning. “Nice to meet ya. So apparently I'll be playing your sidekick for the day, huh?” He smiled lightly, clearly not having much issue with it.

@holland

“Sure, it’s over here.” Angelo retrieves his bicycle as the ranger releases his pokemon, opting to push it and the dummy cargo as opposed to riding it down the path, falling into step with Holland. It seemed that, despite his less than conforming appearance, the man was all-business. He didn’t mind the lack of small talk though, it was nice in its own strange way to just get on with things, to not have to wrap his feelings up in cotton wool or plaster on smiles; sometimes it was okay, he guessed, to simply flow and be. To march on with their task.

Still, when he asked for the place where he had been attacked, Angelo hoped that he knew it wasn’t just him who had almost been mugged. That would be damn embarrassing.

“True,” he mused with a soft chuckle as the ranger commented that, despite being psychic types, they weren’t all too difficult to figure out. “Just take a detour through the trees and they’re left scratching their heads.” He pats the handlebar of his bike, as if to punctuate that he had given them the slip the last time that they had crossed paths without too much trouble. “Anyway, this is where they jumped out the last time. Others have said they’ve been spotted close by, too.” He stops at a corner in the path, where on one side looms a hill and another is a small dip into a copse of trees. “When it was me, they came up through the woods.” He turns to look at the ranger again, leaning forward against the handles of his bike, relaxed despite the professional air radiating off the guy.

“So, what do you think? Want me to ride off and come back up the path with the cargo?”

@holland

“Gotcha, one distraction coming up.”

From what they had on the psychic pokemon, gathered from sightings and accounts, it was quite an avid trainer fan, there was no way that it was going to ignore the sounds of a battle, both for its obsession and wild instincts alone. So as Holland’s two pokemon were ordered to duke it out with one another, Angelo turned to his bike and popped open the box of loose, empty pokeballs that had been strapped to the back for ‘delivery’. Its white and crimson surface sparkling as a sunbeam hit. As a dark shadow leaps out of the bushes and Holland warns him to be ready, Angelo quietly grins to himself.

By the time the form of a Medicham approaches the duelling grass pokemon, he’s suddenly taking a step from his bike and – although it pains his heart a little – he lets go of the handlebars in a feigned spooked display, the metal frame clattering to the dirt and spilling miniaturised pokeballs over the path with a clatter. There was no way the trainer-wannabe would be able to ignore the bait.

As if on cue, the psychic-fighting type became distracted from Holland's pokemon with its attention drawn into the glittering capsules that bounced along the ground, lunging forward with a high jump kick towards Angelo's direction, clearing the distance so that it could land amongst the spheres and hopefully scare the delivery boy off, too. “It's all yours! Just watch your step!” He calls out to the ranger as he jumps back near his bike, his minior floating from behind him to scatter shards of stealth rock amongst the bait, earning a startled cry from the Medicham as it landed right on one of the spikes in its bid to collect the spilled goodies.

@holland

When he had internally thought that Holland was quite the serious, no nonsense type, he supposed he hadn’t been wrong. As the Medicham recoiled from the stealth rock, a Dragonite was summoned to the battle, the large orange dragon making quick work of the wild pokemon in the air and subjecting the psychic to the sharp spikes below when dropped out of the air. It was a pretty efficient clean up, really. Angelo couldn’t help but be impressed, if a little secretly downcast, that there was little he could do. Suppose that’s what you get when you’re a delivery boy though; he’d have to get used to not having much chance to battle when he returned to Johto, anyway.

Not letting it show, he smiled at Holland as he caught the Medicham who had just been discarded into the bush and started to kick at the stealth rock shards that remained, brushing them away with his foot into the grass so that he didn’t end up puncturing a tire or have anyone step on it. “Great, I’m sure the folks at Mauville will be happy, not having to worry about getting jumped when making their way out of town.” Thankfully for Holland, if it was anything to be reassured by at any rate, Angelo wasn’t too bad at socialising with others.

“Nah man, thank you. You did all the work.” He crouches down to pick up the scattered pokeballs next, collecting them in his arms to begin dumping them back into the box. “Do you have to shoot off right away? Before I left, I heard the manager at the poke mart mention something about stocking you up on some items as thanks for your help, if you're interested?” If it was him, Angelo would take it, but then he wasn't exactly one to turn down something for free...

@holland