the scene in front of her is a welcome one, if a bit busy. she grips the quiver a little closer to her chest, trepidation shifting to something sweeter as a smile crawls up the corner of her lips. a piece of cheese dangles and falls from a mudkip's face, landing with a splat on more mustard than counter. 

shame roombas can't climb. 

"i - " she starts, looks sideways at the mudkip still staring blankly at her, mustard smeared over its face - "i'm good."

she shifts the quiver in her hand and juts her chin towards the supplies for a supposed blanket fort. "can i help?" she's never made a blanket fort. but the other her did. and will it feel similar? will it feel nostalgic? tying blanket knots and laughing - and will she think, i miss doing this with Roy Aker?

ana fell

☉

"must have taken you forever to get all the proper permits," she jests while admiring the fort. this is nothing like what they'd done as kids (you never did that, love. that wasn't you. that wasn't you). she thinks that and her synapses fire the wrong way; a headache threatens at her temples and she lifts her free hand. 

she's used to a dogpile of salamence. she has slept amidst slumbering, curled bodies. the sheer amount of fluff and fur around her is a different tactile sensation, but she surprises herself by relaxing quickly while the growlithe bats at the ninetales' twitching tails. 

"i've never seen either of them," she admits and glances at the screen. family friendly movies are what she's used to. and nature documentaries. delta loves those. 

"nice to see lalonde is looking good as new." you wouldn't think the knight had nearly blasted her favorite dragon's insides apart and consequently faced merciless retribution for the attack. 

"they're kind of why i'm here actually. well, that and the arrows, but we can get to that. i think you'd be more interested in the pokemon i - " she starts, but trails off when she notices that some of the pokemon in the room - namely kanaya - have leaned in intently to stare at the screen.

ana fell

☉

she marvels at the homeliness of it all and quite suddenly, she misses KING WAYLAND and delta terribly. she misses their flat. she misses their shared spaces, the sounds of a lived in house. the idea of going back to her hotel room is unbearable. 

she swallows. 

"ah, i brought this. i caught it in the silent icelands when - well, i'm sure you've seen the news." although maybe not. not if she's been watching project runway on a projector screen. "anyway, it's another paradox pokemon. very high tech? i'm not sure. you know this isn't my area of expertise. but it's yours. 

"so i thought you'd want a look at it." she fishes out the dreamy blue ball and holds it out to her. 

"the arrows are a project i was hoping you'd help me with. i have some left from ALEXANDER STONE, but he...won't make them for me anymore."

ana fell

☉

as always, ana is right on the money when it comes to alex. 

"that's exactly it." i cannot be the one arming you anymore. he gave her the means to plunge herself into the fire and yet he fails to understand that now, after all this time, she wants to make it out alive. she will go through hell for the right people, the right choices, and she will live because she has to. needs to. wants to.

they leave the half a million dollar home and freya follows ana back into the garage, looking anywhere for a project that doesn't scream home improvement, and confusingly enough, not finding one. 

one brow arches as banana phone opens up a secret basement and freya's dubious gaze shifts from ana, down the stairs. 

her stomach does a couple of flips as she follows, hand on the railing, and she stops just shy of the basement landing, staring at the array of human and robotic limbs and organs. she'd gleaned ana's fascination with replacing her body parts and it had been easier to leave that on the backburner of her worries. too many responsibilities and duties had to be put at the forefront. 

her first thought is, you can take the girl out of rocket, but you can't - except that's not quite right, because ana had quite literally icepicked rocket out of her head. 

"okay," she says, still skeptical at the start of her explanation, and then the worry lines flatten as ana continues talking. 

please don't hate me. 

she sighs. 

"i imagine this is breaking a dozen building and health codes." she takes the last two steps, solidifying her decision, and goes to inspect the metalwork leg. she'd seen blasted apart pieces of the paradox pokemon and the similarities are striking (though she doesn't have a mechanic's eye). "so it's better if no one knows about this, hm?"

there's enough space on a workbench. she sets her quiver down and ghosts her fingers over the side. it's banged up and bruised, but still it sparks to life. she fishes a piece of paper out of her pocket and smooths out its crumpled edges. it lists all of her available arrowheads and their corresponding colors. 

"and i could never hate you, silly. especially if you're doing this to help people."

this is the sort of freedom rocket can afford to its scientists, she thinks sourly. no red tape. no years and years of trials and testing and waiting and agonizing pain. helping real people right now.

she puts it out of her mind. 

"i think the pokemon in there is more advanced than even sima 2.0. it should help you a lot. and, as for the arrows - the quiver puts them together and spits them out when i need them. i can relearn drawing the right ones if i need to, but alex and i thought it safer if the arrowheads were rendered inert until they connected to the shaft." as evidenced by the beating it's taken. 

"think you can replicate it or something similar?"

ana fell

☉

suddenly, it's like she's not even there. ana's talking, but it's not really to her. the mechanic walks through the process aloud and freya can practically hear the gears turning in her head (which might not be as figurative as she thinks). wango bango, big summer blowout doesn't make it sound like she can perfectly recreate what thousands of dollars from devon co. poured into the tech, but hey, she'll take what she can get. 

and knowing ana, and the love she puts into things, it might just be better.

more things freya is going to consequently, intentionally forget about are illuminated for her. she rolls the ball around in her palms, sizing up the space, and thinks it should fit. she takes a step back and drops it. 

the creature is a masterful display of metalwork. the damage she'd done to it to get it into the ball has been rewritten over at the pokemon center and she fears it may strike back, but the neon glow exuding from led strips under its metal plating is almost...friendly. or at the very least, indifferent.

which, she supposes, is better than wrathful. 

it does not blink. it does not move. it stares straight ahead; that is, until freya cautiously steps to the side. then it simply turns its head, scans her from head to toe, and returns to a static state. 

"huh. it was way more violent in the fissure." maybe all of the energy around there? "what do you think? will it be helpful?"

ana fell

☉

"interdream mist," freya says, but she doesn't elaborate. she can't. she knows the sparknotes version of most of the research done by the league. ask her about the finer workings of the stuff, how it's able to create this, and she'll only shrug her shoulders. 

while ana calls upon the help of some more of her pokemon, freya takes a couple of steps closer. tentatively, she reaches out a hand and places it on the creature's side. it reacts. it reacts as though she'd touched flesh, turning its head, the plates on its back shivering as though she'd pet a mudsdale. 

"i don't know much about the circuitry versions. the only paradox pokemon i have are roaring moons. but sima 2.0 - is it sentient? or are they programs?"

ana fell

☉