[attr="class","sunshine"]The moment Malamar drops Princess moves to cover for her trainer. While Plank struggles to her feet, gripping the ropes that wrap the ring while favoring the leg not spilling blood into her shoe, the Seaking runs low to the ground and pops up in front of her -- separating her from Theo.

"Ah chill out, Princess," Plank admonishes her pokemon through grit teeth, eyes on her right calf. Of course it had to be her right leg. Her eyes trail up from the weeping wound to the raised scars on her thigh from Gavin's Sandslash. At least this one will probably look less ugly once it heals.

[attr="class","sunshine"]Good, this reply is better. This reply is great, actually. Plank's illusions are thoroughly dispelled by the end of it. The kindness she thought she was receiving was convenience. The care, simple efficiency.

He just wanted to make sure his promising new recruit didn't go and break herself. She decided to read into it what wasn't there.

Sure, Gavin doesn't get the rest of what she's saying but why should he? It was just more venting of feelings he didn't reciprocate. A dying gasp from thoughts she should have never been nursing.

He looks uncomfortable. Frustrated? It's hard to place. She shouldn't be trying. She should probably head out before it means something bad for her.

"Okay, understood," she replies, "Can I go back t' my dorm, then? Gotta finish gettin' ready for missions on the mainland I've got comin' up."

[attr="class","sunshine"]This ring is no holds barred, but for most that only registers when thinking about your pokemon. You don't need to hold back in battle, your pokemon can be as brutal as it wants to be, and if one dies it's no one's fault but the trainer for signing up. Most people would never dream that the rules being loose would put them in danger.

Most people have not battled Cillian Quinn.

Most people have not been personally brutalized by the opponent standing opposite them.

That is to say, that when Theo orders his Malamar to throw an attack at her Plank is less than shocked. She knows well the capacity for violence within the man she's battling and even if she didn't she knows the extent to which the man he trained is willing to push the limits.

"Princess, stay on 'em!" she shouts even as she dives towards the mat. An attempt to evade the attack hurtling in her direction.

The PSYCHO CUTTER is fast, though, so even as she jumps out of the way it grazes across the side of her calf. Shears off a clean few layers of skin.

"God. Damn it!" she grits through her teeth. Punches the mat. That fucking hurts! That's somehow worse than the claws! The way the psychic energy pulses through her leg . . . damn!

The pain is worth it though. It means Malamar isn't focused on its actual opponent.

While her trainer writhes on the ground, Princess is on the offensive. A MEGAHORN is thrown again, and expecting some kind of evasive maneuver its momentum is used to fuel a tackle like a WATERFALL that follows it up.

[attr="class","sunshine"]Plank's mouth twists just a little more. She scowls just a little harder. The response is . . . well it's what she ought to have expected. He doesn't get it or he doesn't care and either way it's exactly what she should have expected. Fine.

This isn't on him, it's on her. She got her hopes up on her own and she dashed them on her own.

"Fine," she replies. The word is flat and cold and betrays absolutely none of the twisting in her gut or the catch in her chest she's fighting or the way her eyes burn just a little bit.

"Mistakes mean beatin's? Fine. I deserve it for lettin' Ozaki fuck up my job? Fine. I extra deserve it for coverin' her ass? Fine. None of that is new for me," she runs through it bit by bit, the hand that was in her hair gesticulating now in front of her, "but you outta know that that mission was one stupid mistake and that not once anywhere else did I do my job any less than perfectly."

"I killed when I thought it was what ya wanted. Killed for the first time 'n' have sat through nightmares 'n' grief without once thinkin' of doin' anythin' but what ya ask the next time ya ask it," she doesn't know why she's saying it he's not going to get it and he doesn't care but she has to get it out of her system before she lets it die. She can't let it rot inside of her.

"Even after ya flipped shit and cut my leg open I was ready t' work my ass off not for Rocket but for you, because I thought . . . I don't even fuckin' know what I thought," she sucks in air through her nose, lets it out with enough force it's audible.

"Doesn't matter. I don't now," she returns her other hand to its pocket, "either way I guess ya got what ya wanted though. I'm not eager t' spend any more time gettin' my face re-arranged, so whether it's for you or Rocket or my own ass I'm in it for the long haul. Obedience 'n' loyalty 'n' whatever else you're askin' for."

[attr="class","sunshine"]Plank's first impression of the gym leader isn't great, but then again she didn't expect it to be. He's peppy and a bit clumsy (if the way he comes to a less-than-graceful stop before her is any sign). The exact kind of person she expects to be battling kids for a living.

"Yeah, that's me. Thanks." she replies simply. The man's extended hand isn't ignored, but it's not accepted right away. Plank stands and looks at it for a second. The smirk on her face widens as she decides why the hell not and slaps her hand into shake position. She follows his gaze as they shake hands, and starts an easy saunter to the ring the moment their hands separate.

"Not gonna be easy," Plank echoes under her breath mockingly, quiet laughter trailing after the words.

"Well let's get to it then!" she says a second later, this time at a conversational volume meant for her opponent, before taking a couple bounding steps up into the ring and making her way to a corner.

Without asking if this is the part where she releases her pokemon, Plank goes right for it. Baby and Swabbie burst onto the scene in flashes of white light. Internally she reminds herself to refer to them impersonally, Sharpedo and Pelipper respectively.

The clouds behind Swabbie's DRIZZLE start to lazily form above them.

[attr="class","sunshine"]"What I think about whether or not ya 'enjoyed' it doesn't fuckin' matter, actually!" Plank replies, "Either way ya sat there 'n' watched while some stranger worked me over for reasons I didn't even fuckin' know when I was wakin' up from whatever drug you'd managed t' slip me!"

"Even now I'm only just learnin' that the reason I was gettin' worked over at all was because Ozaki did some traitor shit I didn't even know about!"

The hands in her pockets ball up into fists and her face tightens. Around the eyes. At the corners of her twisted mouth.

"Ya sat there 'n' watched while this guy beat my face in so bad I couldn't eat right for days. Rattled my brain so hard I couldn't turn my head too fast without blowin' chunks." One of her hands snakes up to grab at her hair, at its edges that sit damn near a foot higher than they used to, "Held me up by my fuckin' hair."

"I don't care whether ya enjoyed it. Ya ordered it 'n' watched it happen either way. And ya didn't fuckin' have to."

[attr="class","sunshine"]She scoffs openly.

"I didn't expect t' have a 'nice time', Gavin, but I expected the inevitable assholes I'd run into t' own their shit," she says, not shouting now but hardly watching her volume, "Be my asshole boss, some shithead superior I have t' tread lightly around; or be some fuckin' caretaker who patches me up 'n' asks me if I can handle what's happenin' -- ya don't get t' be both."

"And if you're gonna have me smacked around do me the basic courtesy of doin' it yourself instead of watchin' in the corner like some sadistic voyeur."

There's a pause at the news about Ozaki, but only for a moment. She sucks her teeth and looks off to a corner.

"I don't see what the fuck that has t' do with me," she shoves her hands in her pockets, "She use the Porygon t' do it? Ya think I knew a single thing she was gettin' up to after the one mission we did together?"

[attr="class","sunshine"]"I enabled some dumb fuckin' girl who wanted to save a Porygon!" she shouts now, "It's one fuckin' pokemon out of how many Rocket trades a day!?"

The lines of tension running through Plank's body are clear, she can feel them and they stand out in her posture. The way the veins in her neck bulge, the way her shoulders resolutely refuse to move -- her fingers that lock into uncomfortable claws as they struggle to decide what to do with themselves.

"And yeah, ya should have handled it yourself!" she continues, "and while you're at it ya can drop the fuckin' caretaker routine after I've been beaten bloody!"

Anxiety wrestles with fury. Her eyes are sharp and her mouth a cold sneer, but her body is trembling. She runs a tongue over her lips and swallows hard. Then she's going again, hardly missing a beat.

"Does it make ya feel like some kinda hero?" she asks, jutting out her chin as she clenches her hands into fists at her sides, "Lettin' your mentor beat on this poor, stupid little girl t' teach her a lesson -- only t' swoop in at the last moment 'n' save her? T' try 'n' fix up her poor, broken, little face? T' patch up her leg after you've torn it open?"

"Ya think just because ya didn't let me bleed out on a cave floor or get my brains blown out by Mr. Beckett that I outta come kiss your fuckin shoes? Cause, oh, I could be dead instead?"

[attr="class","sunshine"]Whatever Gavin expects his words to do, they don't. The pointing out of "Beckett's" rank, his own rank, the second reminder that "were this Kanto you'd be dead". All they do is make her angrier. More spiteful.

"Ah, I'm startin' t' get it," she says, the angry, smug lilt to her voice betraying the direction she intends to take things.

"In Kanto I would have died. Theo," and she uses his first name intentionally, pulling on the memory of a conversation with a woman last week, "would have killed me slow. I really did luck out. You didn't even have the guts t' fuckin' beat me yourself!"

[attr="class","sunshine"]It's baffling, the way Gavin barrels forward. She's at a comedy club and he's practicing his tight five. She's not fucking laughing.

"Well it's a damn good thing we're in Hoenn then, huh?" she shoots back, "It's a damn good thing I'm talkin' t' you then, huh?"

She can feel heat rushing to her face already, the tension building in her shoulders. In a moment of petulant inspiration she scans her eyes over the empty courtyard.

"Yep, I'm in the clear! No lackeys for ya t' sic on me!"

[attr="class","sunshine"]It's just Plank's luck that the day before she intends to finally leave this shitty sub she gets summoned to meet with Gavin. When the order reaches her through the grapevine she almost decks the messenger.

She spends the whole day leading up to their meeting dreading the worst. Their last little get-together had hardly been planned, but the one before it that was hadn't ended without incident. While her face has mostly recovered from the beating she received, that pair of raised scars on her leg likely never will.

Knowing this, she stares in the mirror and wills herself not to flinch. Not to back down. No matter what. She runs fingers through her significantly shorter hair and comforts herself with the knowledge that at least that is no longer so significant a weakness for her.

All this gritting her teeth and building of determination makes it all the more infuriating when the first words she hears after entering the courtyard are . . . well, what does she even call them?

"Are ya fuckin' kiddin' me?"

A joke, yeah, that feels about right.

[attr="class","sunshine"]The rain is gone, this advantage lost, but not without some small victory. Plank can't help but pump a fist at her side as the Malamar goes limp.

"Let's put it down!" she shouts to Princess. The Seaking dips low and moves in quick, no longer boosted by SWIFT SWIM but still a slippery fighter without it.

She rises expecting to get in a clean attack, only to be met by PSYCHO CUTTER. Aimed more deftly than expected. It's no matter, though, the attack breaks on her SUBSTITUTE and the SUBSTITUTE breaks with it. No momentum is truly lost, but without this last bit of protection Princess is left to persevere with the dregs of her waning strength.

Her horn glows as she pulls in close to the Malamar and then, two quick thrusts, she tries to bring the fight to a close with a pair of quick MEGAHORNS.

[attr="class","sunshine"]"The others wouldn't make a damn bit of difference t' us, would they Thomas?" Plank calls across the field to her pokemon. He does not reply.

"Thanks for the assist, though, it'll help us finish things a bit faster," she continues, as if her pokemon hadn't left her high and dry, "No fancy shit! Drown it in mud!"

Plank's Palpitoad takes in a big breath of air. His cheeks bulge comically large and quiver they're so full. Thomas doesn't listen to small talk for shit, but he's good with orders. Good with directions. When he lets loose that breath of his it's filled with MUD SHOT after MUD SHOT that whistle through the air and home in on the Raichu.

But it's no sitting duck. Raichu's not caught off guard and there's no SAND TOMB holding it still so it moves. AGILITY strengthens its legs and increases its mobility. A couple of the MUD SHOTS land, and when they do they hurt, but not enough to keep it down. It starts closing in on the living mortar assailing it.

"T' be honest? I couldn't care less whether she was mean or not," Plank replies to the man as the action unfolds, "I just didn't want ya wastin' my time with double talk we don't need."