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miyako glances up from where she secures a camera around her neck into a waterproof camera body. an easy job? "were you lied to or something?" the technician intones. "i mean, easy if you count trying to not get crushed by debris, i guess."[break][break]

satisfied that her camera body is secured well enough to prevent any water from seeping in and ruining the film, miyako gets to uncoiling her respirator and attaching it to the oxygen tank she will soon be strapping onto her back. her eyes are slack and blank, a sign that miyako is truly bored. underwater ruins may not be her usual haunt, but the task certainly is. salvage intel, take detailed pictures of whatever can't be brought up. just like every other day. siiiigh.[break][break]

at least another slacker is with her, an old colleague. kyle's probably more of a curse than a blessing, though. to miyako, at least. she finds it really funny to mess with him.[break][break]

"what? nah, i'm following your lead," miyako lies deftly as she pulls her oxygen pack over her back, though a smirk gives her away. "nah, for real though, we're just getting intel. hard drives and shit. i'm gonna be taking pictures of stuff we can't take, and general scenes. you ready?"[break][break]

21. Use technology to assist in the operation.

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oh. fuck. he actually believed her.[break][break]

she feels kind of bad about it. he looked really tired for just a second. while this is not the first time she's pawned off more difficult work to someone else, this is probably the first time she's actually wanted to take it back. "wait, kyle, i was just--" she stammers, reaching out.[break][break]

he leaps into the water. miyako's hand falters.[break][break]

"...messing with you."[break][break]

damn. once again, miyako faces the consequences of her own actions. miyako curses under her breath as she quickly adjusts her mask and slips into the water after him. the cold shock of the ocean helps clear her head, and she kicks her legs to propel herself downwards, following the faint silhouette of kyle ahead.[break][break]

the water is murky, the wreckage of sea mauville looming like a forgotten beast beneath the waves. they navigate through twisted metal and debris, the remnants of a once-grand facility now nothing more than a decaying husk. it’s eerily quiet, the only sounds their own breathing and the occasional groan of shifting metal.[break][break]

the wreckages they come across sparkle with information. not locked, as they've been summarily avoiding the more carefully protected areas, but of interest to the league nonetheless. passing alongside a room with shelves shattered across eachother, miyako carefully snaps a picture of the wreck, and then zooms in on the books and papers scattered alongside. too wet to bring back to the surface in one piece, but the quality of the picture is at least enough to read what was on them.[break][break]

the floor begins to tremble. miyako's eyes widen as she lowers her gaze to the shifting sand and dirt a few meters below them, and her breath catches as a massive blue fish parts from it. a dondozo, having lain in wait, now very hungry, with its eyes set on the two intruders into its newly drowned territory.[break][break]

27. Handle encounters with hostile individuals or pokemon.

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miyako squints through the murky water, trying to make sense of kyle's flailing hand gestures. the whirlpool created by the battling gyarados and dondozo makes it even harder to focus. whatever kyle's trying to say, miyako's patience runs thin.[break][break]

forget it, she thinks, her frustration bubbling over.[break][break]

without overthinking it, miyako swims straight toward the massive dondozo. the creature looms like a living fortress beneath the water, its eyes fixated on gyarados. miyako doesn’t care that it’s probably not the best idea, or that kyle might have had something more strategic in mind. she just wants to put an end to this chaos.[break][break]

she propels herself forward with a burst of speed, her fist clenched tight. the dondozo, preoccupied with gyarados, doesn’t notice her approach until it’s too late. with all the force she can muster, miyako delivers a solid punch right to the side of the dondozo’s massive head. since she doesn't have any pokemon suitable for being underwater, she had to take matters into her own hands.[break][break]

07. Defend important locations or resources from harm.

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miyako feels the dull throb of her fist from where it made contact with the dondozo's head, though the feeling of adrenaline still courses through her veins, dulling the pain. as she watches kyle’s gyarados latch onto the massive fish, dragging it away, the water around her stirs violently, creating a cloud of silt and debris that obscures her vision. the swirling chaos of the underwater battle momentarily engulfs her, and miyako finds herself kicked back a few feet by the current.[break][break]

she quickly regains her balance, her eyes narrowing as she notices something glinting in the disturbed silt. With the dondozo now preoccupied and kyle seemingly content to watch from a distance, miyako dives toward the source of the glint.[break][break]

her fingers dig into the soft sediment, sifting through it until they close around something solid. it's cold to the touch, slightly metallic, and after a bit of effort, miyako pulls it free from the muck. she squints through the murky water, trying to make sense of the object in her hand.[break][break]

it's a rusted steel box, the lock broken from however many moons it's sat undisturbed beneath the ocean. when she opens the top...[break][break]

holy shit. jackpot.[break][break]

a stir of bubbles forms around miyako as she gasps, then inclines the box to show kyle from where she floats, almost oblivious to the chaos behind her. within the rusted box is a massive collection of cds, most of them in a semblance of good condition. a pretty great find, if miyako does say so herself.[break][break]

the real problem now is getting the hell out of there. closing the box, miyako indicates to kyle with one finger pointing upwards, towards the sunlight, at which point she begins kicking up.[break][break]

45. Retrieve important hard drives from Sea Mauville computers.

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miyako removes her respirator as soon as they crest above the water. her hair is soaked, her body uncomfortably wet, and her knuckles certainly bruised from the force with which she punched the dondozo (which, in retrospect, did very little), but there's a wide smile on her face.[break][break]

she gets the undercurrent of kyle's question, and the way he looks at the steel lockbox. why even bother? he seems to be saying.[break][break]

"and all i had to do was punch a dumb fish!" is miyako's reply, and the feeling behind her words is also clear: success is so much sweeter when you do very little to achieve it.[break][break]

and truly, they both had done very little. bar punching a fish and digging for a few moments beneath some sediment, the lockbox had honestly fallen into her hands. she'd say the day had turned out to be a success.[break][break]

still, doing all of that was still way more than she was used to. miyako yawns and stretches as she feels her eyelids grow heavier. "tell me when we're back at shore, 'kay?"[break][break]

with that, she reclines on the back of kyle's gyarados, promptly falling asleep with the lockbox in her lap.

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