“Agh—!”[break][break]

She was disappointed and also upset. For no real reason; she’d never taken rhythm games seriously before, but maybe she was used to being good at things at first pass.[break][break]

Josh, on the other hand, did astonishingly well despite the diabolical machine telling him he’d failed. [break][break]

The people around them were impressed. The small crowd that had gathered first for Yujin’s antics had then swelled like a font upon the arrival of the local gym leader.[break][break]

Josh’s nonchalance in continuing their hangout surprised her, and she showed it. Men at even the loose edges of her age range tended to flirt with her, but this didn’t feel the same at all.[break][break]

Could it be? Was Josh just the prime specimen of platonic confidence?[break][break]

“...Haha!” Yujin couldn’t help but laugh as she stepped off the arena for Step Step Revolution. “Yes, that sounds wonderful. Do you like shooting games? There’s this one about zombie pokemon I’ve been meaning to try…”

His face was truly an open book. She could have reached across the bar and written in it. Instead she watched the emotion flicker, the oris and zygomatius tense and relax. The mention of a brother seemed strangely worded, yet not sore enough to hide.[break][break]

“I do enjoy roller coasters and carnival games~” Mostly the shooting ones. She used to be a glutton for thrill rides as well, but at some point in her twenties she hit a wall and couldn’t recover from the vertigo quite as well as she used to.[break][break]

“Hmm…” It took her an uncharacteristically long while to answer.[break][break]

“I travel alone most of the time, so I’m used to small towns and out-of-the-way places. But I think I prefer cities. I…” [break][break]

Based on all the clues he’d given thus far, it seems they were going to disagree on a fundamental way of life. But frankness and honesty was not a terrible creed.[break][break]

“...don’t like peace and calm. I get restless.”[break][break]

She took another swig and, perhaps to her detriment, began to fill it from the pitcher again. “He gave you the name, but is that the one you want?" Fingers tapped on the mug. "Nevermind. I don't mean to get pedantic. I'd rather call you Michael, if that's fine?"

Remnants of the pummeled jellyfish lay crumpled in a corner. Yujin found herself picking her way over, ignoring the last fight going on between the steelix and urshifu. She hummed as she drew what looked suspiciously like an eastern sword, and began lopping off valuable pieces of research material. Fluids splattered onto the floor with a wet shlick, shlick.[break][break]

Once the scene had calmed, she would make her way back—eyes lingering overlong on Callan’s beads, before rising to his eyes and playing it off with a wink.[break][break]

“...Oh, this poor man.” She fussed over Derek, along with his hatterene (and her porygon-z, which kept a suspicious watch, looking for any excuse to begin blasting).[break][break]

“Don’t worry, we’ll get you topside. You can lean on me too.”[break][break]

The fading ranger would feel her support under his armpit, surprisingly sturdy for a small woman. Yujin would gesture to Callan, their words becoming muted and indistinct in the aftermath of the poison.[break][break]

And that would conclude the expedition into the ultra deep sea.[break][break]
cIvyOZil

[attr="class","bottom"]Callan Young DEREK HOFFMAN [break]

She sighed, and a little bit of the breath of life went with it.[break][break]

The topic was relevant to her in a way that he wasn’t yet supposed to understand. When she glanced over the arctic sheen, she saw more fuel for the inexhaustible, inevitable machine—the Black Workshop.[break][break]

But his tone shifted, and she peered at him once more in a return to the personal, leaning into the cold against her neck. His thoughts etched themselves clearly on his face in a monolith of past, present, and to an extent, future.[break][break]

Then the crackle of electricity flashed over his shoulder.[break][break]

Yujin swept her leg forward against his and shoved against his chest backward with an arm; smoothly, like she’d practiced it many times on people larger. It would be enough to trip him, and she’d fall atop right after. She grinned down at Callan as the attack lit up the sky just above their heads.[break][break]

There was another flash of energy as a seemingly random pokeball had gotten loose. Out popped… the familiar drilbur of all things, who tanked the next bout of electricity with a squinty stare.[break][break]

They’d be graced to the sounds of a super duper effective drill move against metal, followed by another catch attempt.[break][break]

“So sorry, I didn’t catch what you said.” [break][break]

Yujin leaned forward, pressing down on Callan’s chest as her hair tickled his nose.[break][break]

“...What should I be interested in?”[break][break]

---

[break]

capture attempt on the magnezone

[attr="class","bottom"]Callan Young [break]

As Faelan talked, Yujin sketched away in a notebook.[break][break]

She was neither a digital nor analog person. The best tool is the one that strictly obtains the best results.[break][break]

That being said, some of the doodles… went off on a tangent. Faelan’s face made a few debuts, but they were just as clinical as the depictions of bulbous berries or tri-speckled mushrooms or half-hewn roots—clinical and cold, like a composite drawing.[break][break]

“If you had to give a generalization, Mr. Foxgrove,” she said with a bemused smile, “what are the major things I should look for in inedible or poisonous offerings?”

“I’ll have one of those, too.”[break][break]

Yujin sat down on the stool next to Shion, folding together like a proudly displayed piece of origami.[break][break]

It wasn’t often one had the chance to dress traditionally. At least, not without attracting scores of untold attention. The Yokocho was ideal in this regard. Every perfumed stall, every colorful talisman hung from the eaves, every patter of last night’s water on the rain chains brought back older, simpler memories.[break][break]

This young woman, Shion, was the epitome of the yamato nadeshiko. Her white hair would have been praised in that society, as would her muted, demure manner. Yujin grew up eclipsed by such girls, but now, she smiled with a confidence borne from a black and roving eye.[break][break]

“Frowning already, my dear?”

“...Perhaps the beach during a heat wave wasn’t wise.”[break][break]

Yujin offered a sheepish smile. Phone in hand, wearing a two-piece striped bikini, with a string sunhat atop her head and a bag slung over her shoulder, she looked like the consummate professional of tourism. [break][break]

She’d only seen Ozni in pictures before, but he was striking and therefore easy to beeline to. It certainly helped that Slateport’s beach was far emptier than normal owing to the oppressive heat. Even now, the sand radiated a warmth that would turn scorching if not for her sandals.[break][break]

“Thank you for entertaining me. Shall we get ice cream? Or maybe jump straight in?”

“...This close to Mossdeep City?”[break][break]

Yujin pulled herself out of the water, clambering atop slippery stone and algae-ridden rock.[break][break]

The mouth of Shoal Cave stood ominously before her, like an archway made by a quieter architect. The occasional glittering tooth speckled its darkness, and when she flicked a fingernail against the closest deposit she heard a light clang.[break][break]

Tera crystals.[break][break]

It was low tide, the sun was at its zenith, and the day had been perfect for a little swimming and catch-up. Perfect… and picturesque for a plot twist.[break][break]

“Ollie!” Yujin waved over her ranger buddy, standing there on the shore. Even wetsuits these days came with attachments for pokeballs. “Seems like we might have to work, after all.”

He bent low for something; that little tongue thing he did, it was cute, and it was mischievous, and it was a splay of character much like her pointed tooth.[break][break]

Studying the pale strands of his hair, it struck her that rarely did she look down on someone. Except in the bedroom, or whatever other room, there were many options.[break][break]

These thoughts grew one degree closer to tangibility as he swept her. She let it happen, and she laughed, clear and light as a bell across the quiet icelands. “Scoundrel.” A grown adult, feeling like a teenager again.[break][break]

Check another one off the list. He was definitely the romantic type.[break][break]

But Yujin’s eyes dropped down to the snowball, and her lashes seemed longer and darker than before. The blues underneath them sharpen and crystallize.[break][break]

“That,” she said carefully, “sounds too good to be true.”[break][break]

Even against pokemon abilities? Was it infinite? Was it only stable locally?[break][break]

She looked back at him, trying to keep the subject simple and distinctly boring.[break][break]

“Well, there are a lot of industries that use cooling systems. If the source is limited, it wouldn’t be feasible for the consumer sector, but perhaps in industrial or shipping industries.”[break][break]

A frown. “Dependence on pokemon means we don’t have the best economies of scale. The more things we are capable of without them, the better.”[break][break]

She held up the ball.[break][break]

“...But I imagine this was made by one.”

“Oh, stop it. Men always say stuff like that—still feels good, though!”[break][break]

They clinked cups and her feet did a playful little kick, suspended in air from stool height. In heels, because she enjoyed dressing up but also got tired of looking up.[break][break]

The fox gave them space. Yujin made sure to loudly mmm, this is tasty in thanks. Most things tasted like ash in her mouth, even honey- and peach-laced ale.[break][break]

She made no secret that she knew that he knew. “Aw, thank you! It’s so hideous, I smile every time I see it.” And she glanced over to the rewards area again, proving her point. At least after the last of the crowd had dispersed, though a few stragglers continued to surreptitiously click their cameras.[break][break]

"Arceus… where'd you learn to shoot like that?"[break][break]

“You know who I’m with. We all get rudimentary training.” She put the mug to her lips and gave him a knowing stare. There was more, but not at this social link. [break][break]

She must have only drained half her beer, but her cheeks were already turning pink. “So… why do you go by Navy, instead of Michael?”

She sat up. [break][break]

Gunner was using his binoculars, so Yujin jumped out of her seat, marched to the nearest civilian who was trying to see what the commotion was about, and grabbed theirs instead.[break][break]

“Good eye,” she said as she focused in, smiling in that way she did—one-sided, and with teeth.[break][break]

---

[break]
It took several more minutes for the pirates to arrive. They came in a trawler, and they came armed with lead in their hands.[break][break]

The ship captain had been informed. Their mission handler had been updated. The passengers… not so much. An ambush hinges on an element of surprise.[break][break]

“Alright, shall we get started?” Yujin would wink at her blond partner, casually slipping away to the darker confines of the deck.
As the smaller vessel came in and the pirates starting shouting orders, a small, unassuming pokeball would be thrown out towards the vessel; an Alolan golem would then materialize, rocking the boat as it thumped down upon its top.[break][break]

Immediately, its MAGNET PULL would engage, flinging the smaller metallic objects (i.e. guns) from the pirates hands and towards it. There was a knife or too as well, but the golem pawed them away.[break][break]

Yujin leaned over the railing, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun like a Dior model.[break][break]

“Trap procedure, Al~”[break][break]

And then the STEALTH ROCK formations would appear, anticipating pokemon retaliation.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gunner Graves [break]

“BECAUSE I’M ALONE.”[break][break]

When he returned the bottle she’d grab his wrist in the kind of gross violation of personal space endemic to the party setting. Indeed, she’d glance at his fingertips, chin tilted up, eyes narrowed to slits. The rest of her screamed inebriated and/or high, but her blue eyes were unpromising, like the glow of an alarm clock’s digits in the hours before it meant to ring.[break][break]

And then she smiled again and let him go, gesturing as the final person in front of them vacated the line and they were greeted by the sight of cheap plastic tables and cheap plastic cups filled with a colorful array of liquids.[break][break]

“LIVING OR DYING, I GO AT IT ALONE—SO I’M FREE, RIGHT?”[break][break]

Yujin would also finish the water bottle, set it on the table, and grab another. She’d also go for a bright blue mixed drink and toast her mysterious new friend, presumably if he’d grab something too.

“Unless told to? Hmm… but that defeats the purpose.”[break][break]

She didn’t have a reaction to his widening the gap between them. Instead her hand went to her chin, like they were discussing the weather. “It’s like my sentry turret. I’m usually preoccupied when I’m working, so it watches my back and eliminates anything that sneaks up on me.”[break][break]

But she held out her hand and would whisk the creature away back into its holding with a crackle of psychadelic light.[break][break]

“I suppose it’s like teaching a child what’s wrong and what’s right. I’m not good with kids though, got any advice?”[break][break]

Yujin would nod at his fair assessment of their work being complete. Mostly; she still had to pull the rotom phone from her bag and report back.[break][break]

At his offer, she’d grin. “Don’t be silly. I’ll buy.”