[attr="class","sunshine"]Gavin's voice pulls Plank's attention and again all her anger rises to the surface. Looking at him makes her stomach twist and her chest clench.

"Well ya see, Gav," she spits, "people lie when they fuck up."

[attr="class","sunshine"]"Damn," she mutters, spits again. It's to buy time. Her head is swimming and she needs to remember. Nothing about that night, her stupid decision has haunted her long enough to remember it in vivid detail, but something else. Her conversation with Lulu Flint where she covered for @aoi like a fucking idiot. The lie she'd spun.

Why the head scientist had waited weeks before reporting the story she didn't know, but sticking to it was the only way forward.

"Right, fuck," she sighs, half for show and half out of genuine exasperation with her past choices, "Was an accident. It went overboard."

[attr="class","sunshine"]The man lets her go and she leans forward. Lets her shoulders stretch as blood and spit congeal at the front of her mouth. She spits a disgusting gob of the stuff on the floor between her legs.

In the sweet seconds of relief Plank's allotted she tries to pull herself together a bit. Licks her teeth clean and counts the cuts inside her mouth while catching her breath. Putting a stopper on the waterworks.

She's almost composed when Ozaki comes up. Her head rises slowly, but still the pain of the movement makes her wince. She's suddenly grateful for how low the lights are.

"What about it?" she asks, pushing through pain and swelling to properly form her words, "Routine smugglin' job. Porygon. Done months ago."

[attr="class","sunshine"]Plank hisses as he pulls her to attention again, a sound full of blood and spit. Another pitiful sound tries to drag its way out of her chest but she grinds it down even as she continues to cry. The ropes around her wrists burn as she forces them to dig into tender skin and she pulls on the mentioning of her mentor's name to keep that flickering fire up.

"I dunno," she says honestly, flippantly. The scar to her leg and now this -- it's hard to find the desire to obey, the pull towards loyalty, she thought she'd been fostering. No, those are dangerous thoughts. For a moment her mask breaks and her lip quivers before she pulls it back together.

Fuck what she thought. This is what's real.

"If this is the alternative, though -- he's right. Sure."

[attr="class","sunshine"]The two blows come and she has to twist her wrists in their bindings to hold back the whimper that shudders in her chest. The chair clatters again and she can already feel the pain spreading from her cheeks to between her ears. Hits to the head are the worst. She can't curl up here, though, so there's no choice but to take it.

At least he doesn't grab her face again. She takes a moment to just let her head hang back; but has to abort when she feels blood shift in her mouth. She breathes in through her nose before spitting it on the floor to her left.

She swallows more of it before she turns back to her assailant again.

"Well enough," she replies, voice thick (her tongue is swelling where she's bit it) and traitorously shaky (tears now properly spill down her cheeks), "but got a feelin' . . . ya don't think so."

[attr="class","sunshine"]The red spot on Plank's cheek already aching, already swelling, is struck again. The punch snaps her head to the side again, digs teeth into cheek again, and momentarily tips the chair. The weight of her body shifting lifts the left legs a fraction of an inch. They would have landed on their own, but settle with a loud clatter when Plank's body is suddenly pulled back to center.

The stranger's hand (no, not a stranger, she saw him somewhere . . .) wraps around her face. His thumb digs into her abused cheek, pushing the little cuts inside painfully against the teeth that left them. Her eyes water involuntarily as the taste of blood hits her tongue.

An old, familiar impulse hits her. To cry. To beg. To question. Desperately, her eyes swivel to Gavin and the urge vanishes. Plank finds her anger again. Uses it to burn out the weaker impulses that threaten to consume her.

"What the fuck do ya want?" she amends her question and twists her face into a sneer that comes with a fresh wave of iron over her tongue.

[attr="class","sunshine"]Coming to is a confusing process. Falling asleep when she doesn't expect to isn't an odd thing for Plank, and so waking up from a rest she doesn't remember taking isn't either. Neither is waking up upright.

What is odd is the pain in her shoulders, built up in the background overtime as her body leaned forward -- leaving them stuck between the pull of gravity on her torso and the pull of the ropes that bind her hands behind the chair's back. The room that even in this dim light she can tell she's never been in. And of course the fact that when she does try to move her arms and legs both resolutely refuse.

"What the fuck?" she questions the empty room. Groggy. Her voice dry, "What the fuck?"

The repeated question is accented by an increased effort to move. Underneath her sweater her arms flex as they put considerable effort into breaking her bonds. Her knees burn as they try in vain to unbend -- to straighten legs bound at the ankle to sturdy chair legs.

After her first attempt she shuffles a bit in the seat, readjusts in the empty hope that maybe it's just where she was putting her support that kept her from breaking free. Before she can make the second attempt, though, an unseen door opens.

At first Plank's eyes shoot up in a panic. For a moment she's afraid; but when a face she recognizes comes into view she's suddenly furious.

"What the hell d' ya think --" she starts to shout before a sharp strike to the cheek cuts off her words. She feels the soft skin of her inner cheek scrape against teeth as her gaze suddenly shoots right. It's a reprimand of some sort but she doesn't get the memo.

"Yeah, that's me," she answers a question that wasn't asked and turns burning eyes to meet with a less familiar pair, "and who the fuck are you?"

[attr="class","sunshine"]"Yeah, well I'm a rare breed," Plank replies, getting up off her arms to cross them in front of her chest again, "'n' the gym challenge is such baby shit I can already hear those badges jinglin' in my pocket."

With a grunt she goes to stand up. She gets about halfway there before wincing and clutching at her leg, muttering a short curse, and then making it the rest of the way. There's nothing subtle about how she leans into her good leg once she's upright.

"I'm more than up for it," she says, voice dripping with pride and excitement. For just a moment she lets herself soak in their momentary positions. The ability she has for just a second to look down on Gavin only thrills her more. If this goes how she thinks, maybe it won't be long before that's the norm.

"Name a time t' get me this disguise, 'n' I'll have my first badge before the week is out!"


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[attr="class","sunshine"]This is one of many situations for Plank where the vocabulary being used flies over her head a bit. She gets the gist of it, but some specifics allude her. "Beast" stands out as the most foreign. Obviously she knows what a beast is in common conversation, but the emphasis Gavin puts on the word (the word "rank" tied to it) makes it obvious that's not what he's talking about.

Whatever, it doesn't matter, she hears the word "potential" and decides to zero in on that instead of wasting time by potentially getting Gavin talking at length about something she isn't sure she gives a fuck about.

"Hmm, so ya want me t' go play in the gyms t' clean up my strategy," a smile (a genuine one) spreads across her face, "and once I've done that I can get a . . . promotion or whatever?"

Being a grunt fucking sucks. If going and knocking around some chumps who battle toddlers all day can move her up a bit she'll do it.


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[attr="class","sunshine"]Plank runs her eyes over the "dojo" lazily while the stranger speaks. Yeah, that explanation lines up with the vibes she was picking up. A similar sword to the ones in the corner rests in the man's lap so she assumes they're training with those specifically. That's sounds cool as hell, actually.

"All this noise was distractin' as fuck, so I guess I'm on a break too," she says plainly, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. She watches the man fetch out foreign materials, or at least one foreign material. Handkerchiefs are handkerchiefs even if they're being used for whatever the fuck he's doing. On that note, Plank dips her hand into the lot of them once she's been invited to.

"Thanks," she says before running the cloth over her face to get rid of the sweat dripping down her hairline and dangerously close to her eyes. She starts running it over her pits afterwards, and once again looks about the room.

"So what, ya just swingin' that thing around at your pokemon?" she asks casually, pointing towards the Bisharp with her now thoroughly dampened handkerchief, "I don't see any other people here."

[attr="class","sunshine"]"If ya say so," she acquiesces with a tired sigh, Plank is finally starting to see where this conversation is going and she can't say she loves it. She also can't overstate how little she wants to walk away from this conversation with homework from the man who left her with two more scars than she entered with.

Not that she imagines she'll be getting much choice in the matter.

Instead of worrying about the inevitable, Plank turns her attention to the badges Gavin displays to her. They mean little and less to their as far as their shapes go. One of them looks like the emblem for Silph Co., knowledge she has only because of how dominant the company is, and there's some that look like . . . leaves? feathers? One kinda looks like a monster?

What does mean something, though, is the number.

"Wow, seven, you're close" she remarks with a laugh that's more mocking than impressed, "Can't believe I'm lookin' at Hoenn's next champion."


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[attr="class","sunshine"]Plank nods her head along as Gavin speaks, mentally playing back what he says in the hopes of remembering it for later. It takes some real focus. Scraping her leg has those cuts screaming at her again and the small bit of pride she got from puzzling out Gavin's little problem can't overcome the exhaustion from everything else.

The bit of praise threatens to, though, for just a moment. Despite herself a small grin presses at the corners of her lips when Gavin compliments her opening strategy. She thought it was pretty good while cooking it up in the cave, too.

"The gym challenge?" she takes a break from internally congratulating herself to shoot Gavin a confused look, "No, not really. That's just battle theatre for prissy kids. I don't have the time."


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[attr="class","sunshine"]What Gavin says sounds redundant at first. Yeah no shit if she could just turn the hail off that would have been great. But then she says it back to herself as Gavin (finally) gets to the point and it starts grinding. Plank's face goes from frustrated to scrunched with thought to suddenly almost surprised.

Her eyebrows rise and her mouth forms a silent "oh" as it clicks.

"Oh, so like, I should have a uh . . . what's it .. a Rain Dancer," she says, leaning forward a little further and placing her hands palms-down on the ground, "That way I can just put the rain back up whenever my opponent fucks around with it."


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