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"Oh," Julia said when she saw that Toto was a bit too distracted to answer her. Well, at least he had the Overqwil handled. Instead, Shiver came to her aid, forming an arm of the many individual Wishiwashi that made up her form so she could point down into the water. Julia didn't find it nearly as creepy as some might have; in fact, it reminded her a lot of a fish movie she saw as a kid! She did have to wonder how they all coordinated like that, though.

[break][break]She looked down through the clearing Smokescreen to the two dark spots in the water, which emerged to reveal an ongoing wrestling match between Blackjack and the poacher. They disappeared and reappeared under and over the waves, turning the spectacle into a highlight reel. Except it only highlighted a few seconds at a time. Not a very good highlight reel, honestly. At least it ended with Poacher #2 getting dragged into Fish Jail with his fellow.

[break][break]Yep, getting a compliment from a Rocket was still weird! Especially since it somehow made the whole thing more genuine. Friends and allies were supposed to lift each other up. Enemies didn't have a reason to, so when they genuinely did, it hit differently. Then again, there was the chance it was just a ploy to get Julia to let her guard down. Argh, thinking about this was too hard, so she took the chance to bounce off Blackjack's preening:

[break][break]"Oh, really? All I saw was Inky's Smokescreen." She shrugged with a carefree smile. She felt just a little bad about that when he next asked if she and her team were all right. Inky chose that moment to pop out of the water next to her, looking quite pleased with herself. "We're fine, but we're not done yet. Let's get this last guy locked up."

[break][break]Julia had Lazuli swim over to where Toto was cleaning up, and the Lapras pitched in with some Life Dew of her own. "So, do you wanna join your friends in Fish Jail, or do we gotta do this the hard way?" she asked the last poacher.

[break][break]The water bubbling up around the Dragalge told Julia it was going to be the latter. Unfortunately, they hadn't accounted for Inky's continued presence. A purple glow appeared below the water's surface and rose toward the poacher and his mount. The Dragon Pulse knocked them clean out of the water and right toward Team Blackjack. Inky emerged with a proud wiggle of her back fin and a high, trumpet-like noise.

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The teasing smirk caught Julia off guard just long enough for her shoulders to shake with an aborted giggle. But she remembered that this was Blackjack the Rocket talking, and that had her worried that he was being completely serious despite his levity. But... maybe that wouldn't be so bad?

[break][break]"As long as none of your Pokémon try to run me over or something," Julia said with just as much frivolity. It was weird how comfortable she was with saying that. Not that she was complaining.

[break][break]She snickered at the sight of the overstuffed Wishiwashi cage. Those little guys must have been real strong together if they could hold all three of them like that! The poachers themselves looked indignant, completing the picture of comical comeuppance.

[break][break]"I told you we should have split up," one of them said.

[break][break]Blackjack grabbed one of the Wishiwashi, stuck her in the fish jail's keyhole, and mimed locking it. The Wishiwashi turned to face the two humans with a cheeky smile. Okay, what the heck, that was way too cute. And then he and Toto dusted off their hands in sync and shared a fist bump! Julia couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her own face.

[break][break]From the water, Inky let out an imploring little trumpet. She turned around so her back fin was facing Julia and did a little wiggle. When Julia didn't get it, the Kingdra pushed herself back a bit to thrust the fin forward. "Oh!" The lightbulb went off in Julia's head; she wanted a fist bump, too! "Great job out there, Inky." Julia brought her fist forward so it and Inky's back fin could meet. Lazuli instead got some good strokes and scratches on her long neck. "You, too, Lazuli." Both of Julia's Pokémon seemed pleased with the praise.

[break][break]"Yeah, guess that's that," Julia echoed. "Wait, what are you gonna do with these guys when you leave?" Would he just drop them in the ocean, leaving Julia to fish them up for arrest? Or would he go back on his promise and take them to Rocket? No, that wouldn't make any sense. He wouldn't follow her away from Rocket's stronghold if he wanted to do that, would he?

[break][break]Inky swam by Lazuli's side as the ragtag group made their way toward clear waters. At some point, Blackjack whipped his jacket off to bask in the sun on Toto's back. He still had the mask on, though. Of course he did; it'd be silly of him to reveal his identity, even after working together with Julia. He was still a Rocket at the end of the day.

[break][break]Once again, Julia tried to play it cool with his question: "I've gotta admit, you had some good moves out there. Even if I didn't see all of them," she added lightheartedly.

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Julia burst into giggles at the sound of Blackjack's raucous laughter. Lazuli glanced back at her in a combination of concern and confusion. At least Julia's laughter meant she was okay, but the Lapras hadn't expected her to go there, either.

[break][break]"Hey, it turned out okay!" Julia said once she'd calmed her laughter a bit. "I didn't actually get hurt or anything. Besides... you actually made sure I was okay. That was really cool of you." She had to pause for a moment to make sure that had actually happened and hadn't been a dream. What a crazy night that had been.

[break][break]She wasn't sure what to make of Blackjack's next expression at first. It almost seemed to soften, but the skull mask kept a sharp edge to it that made it hard to judge. His apology came as only sort of a shock because of all that. It was Julia's turn to blink a few times as her brain buffered. The mischievous grin that crossed Blackjack's face afterward was a lot more familiar. She grinned back.

[break][break]"You got it." It may have been punctuated by a quip, but the apology itself didn't have any ifs, ands, or buts attached to it. "I won't tell a soul, promise. Not like anyone would believe me. Right, guys?" She looked back at the caged crooks, still grinning. Wisely, they kept their butts nice and hushed..

[break][break]Blackjack's plan for what came next seemed solid. "Think you can carry all of us for a little bit, Lazuli?" Julia asked. She got a gentle warble and nod in response, earning Lazuli another few strokes on the neck. "I've still got some rope if we need it, but a Power Whip coat sounds nice and comfy!" To the poachers, her beaming face looked more horrifying than it had any right to.

[break][break]"Jeez, now you make me wanna look back. Hope you can really disappear that fast."

[break][break]Her lighthearted, joking smile settled into something more contemplative. "You know, you're a lot different from what I imagined a Rocket to be like. If it wasn't for the mask and the crimes and stuff—" That was one way of putting it. "—I'd think you were just a regular person. Heck, maybe even a Ranger or an Officer."

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The motorcycle incident had scared Julia and momentarily brought her back to a bad place, but it was far from the most traumatizing incident in her life. But how could Blackjack or Isaac have known that? It wasn't like she'd talked about the accident that had taken her leg with either side of him, nor had she gone into the fallout, the deep depression, the physical and mental therapy, the fear that she'd never have her life back, and the determination to take it back that had made her who she was now. She was proud of the person she'd become. That didn't mean she liked thinking about what she'd had to go through to get there.

[break][break]Blackjack admitted that it would have felt wrong to leave a scared, angry Julia there and thanked her for keeping his apology secret. He really was different, wasn't he? It reminded Julia a bit of the age-old lesson of not judging a book by its cover. She wasn't sure if it was supposed to apply to situations like these—after all, as far as she knew, Blackjack had willingly joined Team Rocket—but it still felt apt.

[break][break]So he'd been pulling disappearing acts since he was a teen? Julia had a lot of questions about the hows and whys, but she wouldn't get a chance to ask them even if she wanted to. She'd grown so comfortable with their banter that his scowl caught her off guard. Right, being compared to a member of the League probably wasn't a good thing for a Rocket. She worried for a moment that her words, well-intentioned as they were, would drive a wedge between them and compromise their truce, but then Blackjack averted his gaze and began to half-speak, half-grumble.

[break][break]Julia had been ready to write Blackjack off as an outlier who didn't represent Rocket as a whole. Some people were just different, after all. But between his actions and words on the field and his explanation about the kinds of people who joined Team Rocket, she was beginning to doubt her assumptions about those people and Rocket as a whole. There was no doubt that Rocket was a criminal group that had hurt countless people in countless ways, and it definitely housed its fair share of monsters who deserved to be locked up for the rest of their lives, but Blackjack was far less of an outlier than Julia had thought. There were others like him, and Rocket preyed on them to bolster its ranks and make more monsters.

[break][break]With time, would Blackjack turn out like that? Or would he hold on and continue to be a different face of Rocket, one who wanted better but felt like they couldn't turn anywhere else?

[break][break]"Is that really their only choice, though?" Julia asked. "I know there's all kinds of programs and shelters to help people in need; heck, I brought a bunch of medicine to one not too long ago. And the Rangers put together a whole initiative to help people after the Darkest Day." She didn't know Blackjack's story or his reason for joining Team Rocket, but she did know that the League was doing what it could to look after and protect its region and its people. Was it perfect? Of course not; even an optimist like Julia knew that. But surely it was a better option than turning to Rocket... right?

[break][break]If Blackjack was a member, then he clearly didn't think so.

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"Hey, the Splashfest was more than just 'asspats'. It's a way to bring joy and hope to people. And I'm pretty sure the treasure was already just kinda down there; we just got to fish it up." Quieter, she added, "Dunno why it was Mega Stones for the swimsuit contest, though..." At least Blackjack agreed that the event had been fun. Wait, he'd been there? Probably not in his mask—that would have been way too obvious. Julia wondered if she'd run into him while she was there...

[break][break](She definitely had. She just didn't know it yet.)

[break][break]In an act of upstanding maturity befitting a Ranger, Julia stuck her tongue out at Blackjack's sarcastic remarks on the VALOR Initiative. "We've been off our butts forever! It's not our fault we keep having to deal with aliens and dangerous Pokémon and Rockets."

[break][break]Julia's train of thought ran opposite of Isaac's: The desperate people of the region wouldn't have as many problems and wouldn't have to turn to Rocket if it, you know, didn't exist.

[break][break]Her indignation slowly morphed into surprise at Blackjack's next words. She, too, relaxed now that the stink of faction rivalry was cleared from the air. "Huh. You know, I actually agree with you. It'd be better if people helped people just for the sake of helping people, but help's still help." Wow, that was a lot of "people" and "help" in one sentence. At first, she was surprised that Blackjack was glad to see that hope, but he really wasn't your standard Rocket, was he? At least, he wasn't the standard Rocket that Julia had long pictured in her head. She really had to wonder just how he'd ended up with the group in the first place. It... probably wasn't a happy story.

[break][break]The bow that Sanford added to his algae rope was a cute touch. Lazuli stopped so the trio of troublemakers could be deposited on her back. Behind them, Inky poked her head out of the water and stared at the poachers with a silent warning: Try anything, and you're getting blasted. She may not have been big on fighting, but she was even less big on letting Julia get hurt.

[break][break]"It's not how I expected meeting with a Rocket out here to go, but that's definitely a good thing." Julia grinned. "Oh, you'll see just how the initiatives go. We're gonna keep making Hoenn better and better." And then Rocket wouldn't have nearly as much of a chance to prey on people to bolster their ranks.

[break][break]Julia was checking the knot in the algae rope when Blackjack made his parting remark. When she looked up, he was already gone, leaving behind ripples in the sea that seemed to echo his unheard laughter. "Heeeeeey!" she called, though she likely wouldn't get a response. Dang it, she'd thought she was done being upset about the pie thing. She still couldn't believe that had broken out in an official Ranger meeting...

[break][break]... Wait a sec. How could Blackjack have known about that?

[break][break]She watched the water where he'd been a moment ago, as if he'd pop back out to answer her question. Of course, no such thing would happen. Even if he'd just meant it as a funny little jab at the opposing faction, his words were concerning. Had word seriously reached Rocket about that fiasco? If they knew about the pies, then what else did they know about the meeting?

[break][break]One of the poachers coughed awkwardly, snapping Julia out of it. Right, she had to get these guys back on land so they could face justice. She'd have to worry about the rest of that stuff later.

[break][break]"All right!" Julia said to perk herself up. "Next stop: Ranger jail!"

[break][break]Groans, sighs, and eye rolls came from the bundle of Scumbag Maki.