She wore a hat today.

Its wide, droopy brim did well to shade part of her face. While it wasn’t necessarily a disguise, it did make her blend in much more than her typically grim, black attire.

Additionally, she wore a white tank top, and a pair of fitted jeans. Feet, tattooed whole with black ink stuck out in flip-flops, the end of a dragon’s tail over the top of one of them.

She sat on a barstool, sipping a tequila on the rocks and watching the crowd carefully, and one in particular when he stuck out: Father Bill.

Drink still in-hand, she slid from her seat and went over, flashing a friendly grin. All for appearances.



Weird. It was what she’d been told to call him, though.

For a moment Bill mistook her for a civilian. Just another partying local enjoying the bar and blazing sun. Her hat was delightful, as well as functional, and there was a flare of fashion that was often missing in the punkish or utilitarian dress of a Rocket.

Her smile gave her away. It was too well practiced. Most people smiled shyly, or too enthusiastically, as if they were afraid of showing true enjoyment. Not her. Her smile was too wide. Too sharp and predatory to be anything but a weapon. 

Holy shit.
He couldn't wait to be inside those teeth.

"And it's wonderful to meet you," Bill said. He let the words linger, waiting for his partner to fill the space. "Is it just the two of us today?"

It was practiced.

Teeth faded behind a pressed smile and a tilt of her head.

“Think so, yeah.”

She sipped cheap tequila lightly, confident that it would not hinder her from completing the task at hand. “You in a hurry?” Maybe she was enjoying herself. This setting reminded her of that day on the cruise with Sénon Game; back when things were, somehow, simpler. Definitely not simple—but, still.

They had about fifteen minutes to kill, right?

Salty breeze blew her bangs, reaching underneath the brim of her hat. The sun began to add color to her typically pale cheeks.

She nodded to the bar. “You drink?”

As paranoid as she was, Lulu could sniff out and lock onto suspicious behavior from a mile away. Her eyes cut a perceptive hair or two at the particularly odd place his eyes lingered.

She raised brows at the ’half and half’ story. That seemed like a bit much, even for her before a mission. A shot or two would do her just fine, until later—and then it was, often times, ‘full and full.’

“Wow, Father. That’s a lot.” But who was she to judge? “I’ll be good with this.” Her glass was raised lightly and sipped again.

She looked out at the ocean for a few moments, and then back to him, speaking lower. “So, do you still do... um... worshipping, and all of that? Good book stuff?”

Lulu had been to a church in Mossdeep. It was where chryssa glasgow had told her there was no ultimate god. Or at least, not there, she’d said.

She didn’t interrupt, until something interrupted him. He left her on the edge of her proverbial seat at ‘telescope’, glass melting in her hand. Her eyes didn’t follow his gaze. She knew it was the pirates. She didn’t care. As he turned away and cut off, she tried to pull him back. “Able to what?” They were not done here.

At Father Bill’s command, she nodded and shrugged, as though she didn’t care either way. “Ok. So,” she leaned into the railing as well. Clearly, her interest was seized and would not be shaken without an answer. “The telescope… What about it?”

"The telescope was finished a bit over twenty years ago. It was partly funded by Rocket, and we had a woman on the inside. One of the Astronomers. She was head of data collation." Bill said, returning to the topic. His casual, summer posture was markedly more rigid now. The job had about to start, and the ease of the waves and breeze were replaced with coiled anticipation. "On the books, the project was supposed to be searching for signs of life deep in the galaxy. Pokemon in space. Off the books, we were going to use the local data to track League satellites. 'Know what your enemy knows'. That sort of thing."

Bill's cadence picked up. He spoke at a quick trot, looking around casually. "Our contact, she sent in regular reports. Super detailed. And in one she reported that they had actually found signs of life. Far out in the blackness between stars. Something far from the ordinary blips of organic proteins. Something significant. She wanted to research it further, but her superior took control of the project. The man was dead in his apartment two weeks later. It looked like a suicide." Someone shouted, deep within the boat. There was a cry of alarm, and rough voices, but no screams. Not yet. 

"The project was put on hiatus, the woman quit, and the telescope was recommissioned for starfield research or something. The Mossdeep facility buried the greatest discovery they ever made. Out of fear." He shook his head, but his hair never broke from its dense formation. 

"The telescope should still be able to see it. That life in deep space. I didn't believe her report then, but I do now. With all my heart. Between those stars she saw the face of God."

Close at hand, a gunshot rang out. Someone screamed, and the mission began. 

She noted the changes in him, but was more interested in the topic of the telescope, of course.

Signs of life deep in the galaxy. A wider smile tickled in her cheeks up to her ears, and her spirit was risen. She ate it up.

Rocket's crushing utilization of such a discovery made sense. Her skills had been used with a similar mindset for so long even before them, and now, with the resources she had, she was ready to explore her own endeavors. ‘Mad scientist’ shit, maybe.

The tale of tragedy did nothing to deter her. Lulu’s confidence soared with Darkrai. In her own mind (surely shared with Walsh—and he’d yet to check her so he must’ve approved of everything even if secretly at this point) she was invincible.

“That’s unfortunate.” It was muttered like the punctuating end of a prayer; but not actually caring.

The face of God.

She stared a moment, thought again of chryssa glasgow , and then sipped the drink she’d forgotten about. Then, more prodding.

“Is the telescope in Mossdeep? And where are the—”

BANG.

She instinctively ducked—along with many of the other people aboard.

Everything suddenly spun into chaos. Lulu looked squarely at the minister. “We’re not done.” she assured him plainly. Then, she was off, disappearing into the crowd towards the gunshot. Not shadow yet. She was still finishing her drink.

Bill Anderson

Pandemonium rose from the surf to consume the boat. Scruffy pirates with harsh, blunt weapons shoved and clubbed their way through the boat, heading for the cockpit. A family was too slow getting out of their way and the leader, a man with more facial piercings than teeth, put them down. 

Bill kept back, waiting for the group to pass. Two more pirates brought up the rear, each with a hostage held against them. He stepped out to block their path. "Let them go." He said simply. No need to mince words. The pirates sneered, as they had been paid to. One of them spat. That hadn't been in the contract, but it was expected. 

Quick and obscured. They will forgive brutality if they don't see it, Bill surmised. Abigail emerged in a cloud of low smog, her tongue licking out to sever the legs of the left man, slashing up at an awkward angle. The smog obscured the attack, reducing it to a flash of red in the rolling gray cloud. Both the screaming pirate and his captive tumbled to the ground.

The second pirate swore, a second before a shadowy arrow burst through his face from the back, puncturing his eye. He dropped like a bag of wet sand. 

Bill grabbed the wrists of the captives, hauling them up to their feet. "Come on, let's get out of here."

The drink was finished and she tossed the glass, whistled loudly, and then moved quicker.

It took a moment, but it all started coming back. Maybe it was the screaming, and the blood, and the need for something else to take its place in her mind.

"You asked me where God is…" The words of the seventeen-year-old rang through her head as she ran towards someone.

“God is leaving.”

She dodged bodies, towards chaos, and the opportunity to be a hero—albeit a fake one, maybe.

One of THEO BECKETT ’s trained fists knocked straight into a chin, releasing a child from dropping arms. Without looking, she reached down to take a small hand into hers, leading them towards their mother calling frantically out to them.

“The universe is expanding. Arceus is moving on.”

BANG.

The woman in front of them fell.

The tiny fingers in Lulu’s hand gripped hers too hard suddenly, nails clawing and drawing blood. She heard the pained scream next to her, but it was like white noise at this point.

“Fuck.”

She stopped, shaking, and staring a moment. “Fuck!”

Crouching down, she reached up to grab a crying face by the cheeks, staring back with wild eyes. “I’m gonna fix this, okay? I promise.”

Then, she left the child there alone, disappearing into the various shadows that ran across the deck. Noctowl swooped in, just as she rose up again to bring down the shooter. Her bird's HYPNOSIS began to drop him, but a knife in Lulu’s hand went to slit his throat anyways.

She felt sick.

"If you really want to make things right..."

The girl she’d met the night she’d captured the first Beheeyem had somehow managed to capture its message. She’d appeared next to her in a church, implying that it meant something.

A celestial message. To God?

From God?

He was leaving in the stars—apparently, captured by telescope. Why?

“…you'll have to bring him back."

Eventually, they finished the job.