[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]Truly, the ocean's bounty was never-ending—or perhaps it was the bounty of POG Bank that never seemed to run out, in this case. Either way, more divers were showing up every day to find their own treasure-laden Clamperls, yet the rewards for their efforts never seemed to run out, as far as Aurelie could see. In its own way, it seemed like a miracle. Imagine if this system worked for food or water or, really, any other resource that people needed to live. No one would ever go hungry or thirsty again.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]Well, that last attempt at the Over-the-Gyarados had been an abject failure. She hadn't even gone past the first flip before just falling off the Mantine entirely and landing with a huge splash in the water. At least, she'd been prepared for this trick to take a while, so her feelings about it were much more matter-of-fact than upset.

Still, though, she thought with a sigh as she slowly clambered atop her ever-patient Mantine again, sometimes I wonder if the Mantines are laughing at all of us trying to do these crazy tricks. Or if they get bored or annoyed with us too, for doing these things over and over again. I guess I wouldn't blame them either way! Silently, she thanked the Mantine that was now carrying her back out to sea for putting up with all her surfing antics today.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]As @nikita strode down the hallway leading to the Lilycove City General Hospital's emergency ward alongside the hospital's medical director, Aurelie caught only a fleeting glimpse of the slender, steely woman in a smart skirt suit through the door of her examination room, before a nurse bent over the hand that the red-haired smith was cradling. The nurse tsked reprovingly but not unkindly over the livid red burn along Aurelie's right forearm. Drops of water dripped from her elbow, courtesy of the concerned Sealeo that had industriously kept her arm bathed in a spray of cool water during the entire trip to the hospital.

"You did the right thing coming to us as quickly as you did, dear," the nurse commented, carefully patting the skin dry with a feather-light touch and applying an antibiotic ointment. Aurelie caught her breath and winced slightly, but kept her arm still throughout the process. "How did it happen? Did you spill some boiling water on yourself while making dinner?"

Aurelie shook her head. "I was quenching a blade in oil," she explained, "and some of the oil caught on fire—which isn't terribly unusual," she hastened to add. "But I pulled the hot metal out of the oil too fast, so the oil splashed up my work gloves. The tops of the gloves lit on fire too and gave me a bad burn before I could get them off."

The nurse gave her a dubious look but continued with her work of applying ointment and then wrapping the burn in sterile gauze bandages. The ointment was already reducing the sharp pain of the burn to a mild stinging sensation, and the bandages were wrapped loosely enough to not put pressure on her skin. Aurelie's Sealeo watched the proceedings benignly, seeming to take comfort in her trainer's relief.

"Well, you should be ready to go now," the nurse said finally, after giving Aurelie a cursory check for other injuries and burns. They turned toward the computer. "Let me just print out your prescription for more ointment... Wait a minute..."

With increasing impatience, the nurse started tapping angrily at the keyboard. Aurelie glanced over curiously, just in time to see the screen glitch up into a fuzzy static snowfall. Looking perturbed, the nurse rushed out of the room to talk with their colleagues, who, judging from their voices, seemed just as baffled as they were. What the heck is going on? the red-haired smith wondered, getting to her feet and motioning to her Sealeo to follow.

Then a Porygon darted through the door of her examination room, and the computer started beeping uncontrollably. More of them ran past the door, swarming through the hallway to the sounds of startled gasps and yells. No wonder! Aurelie thought, staring at the Virtual Pokemon in shock. They must be the reason all the electronics were going haywire.

And in a hospital, full of sick and injured patients...

"Océane, come with me!" she ordered her Sealeo, who waddled along after her as best as she could. "We've got to help get this under control somehow." Grimacing as her bandaged right forearm protested the sudden motion, Aurelie charged into the hallway, intent on somehow subduing the pack of rampaging Porygon.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]Maybe if I get good enough at these dunk tank shenanigans, Aurelie told herself, I might even try catching a wild Pokemon myself one of these days! It had been years since the last time she'd done that, she was pretty sure, so the dunk tank had given her more practice throwing a Pokeball than she'd had in a long time. Once more, she stepped up and took aim, narrowing her single eye at the target and raising her arm to fling the ball at the target's center.

This time, she vaguely recognized the person sitting atop the dunk tank, Tam Fawley, as being the person who'd eventually knocked her off the tank that first time she'd managed to sit atop it. They had never met before or since, of course, but still, she hoped she might get some tiny revenge for his feat several days ago. Assuming that her Pokeball flew true...

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]After the first time that friendly Boltund had visited her and swum alongside her during her diving, Aurelie had started bringing a little peanut butter snack with her to the beach, wondering if she'd run into the adorable and ever-so-helpful canine Pokemon again. She'd had a sneaking suspicion that the Boltund might have been jack wainwright's; she thought she remembered a Boltund with him at the Ren-Faire when they first met, although her attention had been wholly focused upon his Honedge, and she certainly knew for a fact that Jack was here at the festival.

Well, whenever it showed up again, she was ready with treats for it. This morning, she simply ate the peanut butter herself and grinned. Good fuel for a long dive, she told herself, licking a stray smear off her lips. Pulling her goggles down over her eyes, she jumped into the water with the familiarity of repeated practice, cutting smoothly through the water to reach the sea floor below.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]Aurelie could hardly believe how perfectly she had managed to pull off her last trick, the dizzying Starmie 720, the last time she'd gone Mantine surfing. It had been a transcendent feeling of incredible agility and grace. For those few, fleeting seconds, her body had felt weightless and effortless to control, and she and the Mantine had moved in fluid, faultless harmony with each other in mid-air atop the cresting waves. After she'd landed, she felt like she could've attempted something much harder and still done well! But that was something that no one could easily predict before they tried.

Now, though, she was left with only the two most difficult and elusive tricks left in the Mantine surfing repertoire. It certainly wasn't going to be easy to perform the Over-the-Gyarados, but Aurelie was content to spend a lot of time working on the trick and perfecting it. She patted her Mantine encouragingly, before guiding it back toward the rolling waves to perform its own flips while she also flipped and somersaulted atop its back. "We'll get this! I believe in us. Let's go!"

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]While Aurelie had had to strain her ears to hear Dahlia Goode's speech and at least some parts of Melody Miro's song, familiar though it was, she didn't have to struggle at all, even a little bit, to heed the entrance of Teravolt upon the main stage. The groaning of the stage mechanisms, the ear-splitting shrieking noises, the booms of the cannons firing, the blast of powerful sound as the band played its first riffs—all of it was probably enough to wake the dead. At this distance, right near the entrance, the volume of the song was merely bearable, rather than the deafening wall of sound that Aurelie imagined it must be in the midst of that surging crowd.

When the lead singer offered everyone in the audience a crown just for screaming the name "Adrian", Aurelie opened her mouth to comply, before catching herself. Sure, the crown was enticing, but who even was Adrian? While she pondered this question, a thousand-plus other audience members screamed the name at the top of their lungs, forcing her to clap her hands over her ears to shut out the horrendous din.

With similar puzzlement, she mouthed the lyrics of the song they were performing under her breath, her brows drawing together in amused astonishment. "Wait, he told us we should all scream this person's name, and then he sings, 'Don't tell me what to believe, don't tell me when to be free'?" she muttered aloud, wondering if this really was as contradictory as it sounded. "'Save it for the sheep, already tamed'? But you just told us that we need to basically act like sheep to get the crown, so..."

As the song wound on, talking about shooting someone in the yard and fighting the revolution, Aurelie rolled her eyes a little. "'Get out of my house, I ain't Bryan'?" she mouthed incredulously. Who even is Bryan? Did I mishear whatever he was shouting?

Besides, she still couldn't get over the band telling their audience what to do and then mocking, well, people who did what they were told. Unless they're actually very subtly mocking their own fans, she thought wryly, in which case they're more clever than I thought they were. But I don't think they are.

She shook her head brusquely and got back to the important business of giving away free bottles of water with Iron Lady Forge labels on them to any interested passerby. With so many people screaming and singing along, a fair number of people accepted. If even a few of them glanced at the label, she figured that was good enough for now.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]Aurelie nodded slowly in understanding as Ruby described with admirable succinctness why her nail bat (fearsome though it sounded) and her Pokemon (as skillfully as she had deployed them in a fight) might not always be the best tool or weapon in every situation. The red-haired smith was pleased to see that Ruby seemed to approve of her initial ideas for her knives. Unfortunately, that made Ruby's all-too-understandable reaction of frustration and exasperation hit even harder after hearing about Aurelie's personal shortage of usable metals. I wish it didn't feel like I'd just raised her hopes up, only to smack them down harshly out of the blue like that, Aurelie reflected regretfully.

But then the grin returned to Ruby's face when she suggested breaking into the well-stocked League warehouse. Aurelie gasped in shock at the thought. "You mean, steal the steel we need?" she exclaimed hesitantly. "But is that really...I mean, isn't that...well..."

She trailed off, realizing that she was about to ask, "Isn't that illegal?" A foolish question for any Rocket member to ask, especially to another Rocket member, considering that the whole faction operated through sabotage, deception, and thievery. Aurelie was still so new to Rocket in general, though, that the idea of personally stealing from the League still felt wrong somehow to her.

Yet, she knew that Rocket of all organizations shouldn't care about following the rules—or the law—set by the League. Besides, with that impenetrable dome cutting off trade to all of Hoenn, she really could use that steel. The League could handle restocking it afterward, surely—and besides, it wasn't like those supplies were being used to feed orphans or something, right?

"Isn't that dangerous?" Aurelie asked instead, as if finishing her thought. Rubbing her chin pensively, she mused, "I mean, I suppose I've only ever seen a couple night watchmen patrolling around the warehouse in the evening, so maybe it wouldn't be that hard to slip past them once we study their routes and blind spots. There are some security cameras, but I'm pretty sure my Magneton could fry the electronics in them easily...

Oh Arceus," she interrupted herself, throwing her hands up in the air, "why am I talking like I'm even considering this? This is crazy, right? I've never pulled off a heist before!"

But she saw the glint of excitement in Ruby's eyes and couldn't help grinning back. "On the other hand, you seem like someone who knows more than I do about breaking in and 'borrowing' some supplies. And Arceus knows, even a small crate of steel bars would be more than enough to make you a pair of fantastic knives and keep my forge going for a while."

Aurelie leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and pulled a piece of paper and pen toward her to start drawing out a simple outline of the building, as she'd seen it from the outside. "Let's say—hypothetically—we're going to do this. Here's what I know of the entrances and exits to the warehouse. What do you think we'd need? Balaclavas, to hide our faces? Lockpicks? A crowbar?"

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]It was her father's birthday today. While Aurelie had never been particularly devout, her father had made a tradition of taking his family on the morning of his birthday to visit the shrines of the legendary Pokemon that he had most admired and leaving offerings and prayers every year. Why he wanted to do it, Aurelie had never quite understood. Was it to ask for their blessings, or to hope to attract the great Pokemon's attention, or simply to harmonize himself with the elements and aspirations that the Pokemon represented?

When Aurelie had asked her father, he'd simply replied, "Because it's important to me." And perhaps, that was the only reason that anyone needed.

Though she hadn't kept in contact with any of her family since leaving Kalos, she journeyed today to Mt. Pyre, where she had heard there was a notable shrine to Heatran. Heatran had been one of her father's especial favorites because of its dual nature of fire and steel: the two elements that metalworkers identified with most. Even though her father was an ocean away, keeping up his beloved tradition and visiting the shrine in his honor made Aurelie feel somehow closer to him. And if leaving incense at the shrine brought her good luck or peace of mind as well, then that was all to the good.

And thus, the red-haired bladesmith found herself huffing and puffing as she followed the trail along the side of the mountain, passing by the many gravesites for which Mt. Pyre was best known. Consulting the map that she'd printed off her computer, she estimated she was only a few minutes away from the Heatran shrine, which sat atop a rocky outcropping. She took a deep breath and readied herself for some meditation and self-reflection at the shrine, holding tightly to the bundle of fragrant incense that she'd brought as an offering.

However, when Aurelie finally climbed the last few feet of the outcropping, meditation and peace were the last things on her mind as she took in the shrine. As expected, there was no roof to the shrine, only four soaring crimson pillars to mark its four corners, and there was the statue of Heatran in the center on a steel plinth, surrounded by candles and flanked by open firepits to give the impression of the Pokemon being engulfed in flames. What she hadn't expected, though, was the ugly graffiti messily spray-painted all over the plinth and pillars, as well as missing chunks taken out of the pillars and paving stones too. Some of the candles had been stolen, and coal from the firepits, so that the flames that remained shone dimmer and weaker than they should have.

Aurelie clenched her fists at her sides and gritted her teeth. Even for someone as uncommitted as she, this desecration of a legendary Pokemon's shrine was shocking. She knew her father would be livid to see it. Since he isn't here, though, I'll have to be the one to do something about it, Aurelie resolved. Taking out a Pokeball, she released her Sealeo and directed it to use its WATER GUN to try and cleanse the graffiti off the pillars. As the Sealeo sprayed the pillars with water, she followed behind to scrub vigorously at the pillars with a clean cloth.

And if any of the vandals who'd spray-painted the shrine and torn pieces out of it returned today... She fingered the knife sheath at her belt and smiled grimly. She'd show them that fire and steel weren't just abstract elements to be revered.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]It was stunning and quite spectacular to watch many people successfully pull off Magikarp Splashes, after many days of attempting the deceptively difficult trick. It almost made Aurelie wonder if she had been approaching the surfing from the completely wrong angle after all, and she should have been trying the hardest tricks first, rather than the easiest. That approach simply ran counter to all her instincts, though. One didn't master a skill by immediately trying the most difficult task they could possibly attempt, without any of the skills they needed to pull it off. Surely, that just wasn't how learning took place and success happened.

...Or was it?

Still, she'd made up her mind. The Starmie 720 still awaited her on the list of moves that she was gradually working her way up, rather than down. And if it made her different from the other surfers, then so be it.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]This time, when she dove beneath the waves, Aurelie didn't swim purposefully in one direction or another or strike out toward any particular goal. Instead, she let herself drift and float on the gentle currents that tugged her this way and that beneath the surface of the ocean, letting herself relax while the undertow carried her. For a frightening moment, she was afraid they might pull her all the way out to sea, but then another current caught her and pulled her back toward shore. When she approached an outcropping of coral and stone, she reached out her hand and found something, guided to it almost entirely by chance rather than by purpose or intention this time.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT

[attr="class","mon"]

[attr="class","monbody"]Aurelie beamed with mingled pride and gratitude as she watched the understanding and admiration of her chosen vocation shining clearly on Caleb Harcourt's handsome—and eerily, unsettlingly familiar—features. He really did look like someone who truly appreciated a good blade—again, rather disconcertingly like Zev, a similarity that Aurelie was still having trouble reconciling fully in her mind. For the moment, though, she was glad enough to be able to search his face and see no lingering signs of suspicion or distrust as he looked about her forge.

And when it turned out he wanted to commission something from her, Aurelie's smile deepened with satisfaction. She made up her mind to do at least as good a job on his commission as she had on Zev's, if not better. This was a customer she wanted to have on her side, thinking well of her.

As he described his ideas and requests, she listened intently, reaching for a piece of paper to jot down some notes. "Ah, a folding knife!" she exclaimed, perking up with interest. "That makes sense for someone like you, looking for an everyday utility knife you can carry everywhere. I haven't made a great many of those," she admitted, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, "but I'm confident I can manage the thumb stud and locking mechanisms to keep the blade secured when you need it to be."

When he brought up wanting to cut through things in daily life, she nodded knowingly. "Probably some serrations near the guard too for sawing," she decided aloud, "and a sharp clip point for greater precision and for puncturing holes in things, like thick leather. Plus a good sturdy synthetic handle to reduce the risk of cracking or splitting on impact, with a pocket clip so you can attach it to a belt or pocket." She wrote quickly, recording her thoughts while he spoke.

When he thanked her for her cooperation and concluded there was nothing amiss in her workshop, she nodded somewhat absently, her mind already absorbed in the design process for the new knife. Thus, she entirely missed the pointed look he gave her at the very end, inviting her to share any information she'd been withholding. Only his polite words of explanation and apology sank in for her.

"No trouble at all, Mr. Sharpe," she replied agreeably. "As I said before, I'm always happy to assist the League's officers if I can. And I'm especially happy to be able to assist you with my own particular craft. It will be an honor to make such an interesting knife for you."

She pursed her lips in thought, looking back down at her notes. "I can't give you a full estimate yet, as I need to figure out what materials I have on hand and how much time I can spend on this project. I normally ask for a down payment," and she named her usual fee, "and I can get in touch with you once the knife is done and deliver it for the balance of the payment. We can take care of that at the front desk, where somewhere in that stack of papers is an order form that I can have you fill out and sign for me and I can copy for your records and so on and so forth."

Ah, the joys of business, she thought a touch wearily. Flashing a warm smile at Caleb for the moment, though, Aurelie held out her hand, seeking not only the gesture of agreement but also the opportunity to assess the size of his hands for the handle construction. "But for now, shall we shake on it?"

And they did.

[attr="class","cred"]VEL OF PIXEL PERFECT