The life of a traveling fixer is a busy one, but the few short hours of respite are wasted idling in a motel room. Why not make more money, why not put your name out there and your face in people’s minds for the small, small price of a sanity that expires when you’re dead anyway?

“I like dancing.” Her eyes twinkled with amusement. “You clearly have a sense of rhythm. Do you also have a sense of style?”

She had been trying to figure it out, but the directional arrows darted across the screen like a school of fish trying to flee from the two sharks, hungry for their devourer score.

When that was done, she was already browsing the next song.

“So you are someone who prioritizes competing against yourself, rather than measuring up to others?”

She pointed at the latest selection, interested in his input of song.

"Is that what gym leaders are about?"

---

Josh Devlin

“No, silly,” she said as she pulled out blackened poles from her bag, comically long until they were separated with a snap. “You’re here to keep me safe.”

She’d hand the objects over to Derek with instructions to place them by the camp entrance, sending him off with a bemused smile.

Next, Yujin would force a theodolite into the ground. “Mr. Young, can you really not cook?” The disappointment felt pouty.

“…We’re too far yet to measure that. This is all standard reading equipment that scientists bore us over, and most of the information will be irrelevant.”

And yet, even as they worked, some of the darkened, crystalline scar within the ‘cave’ would begin to stir and agitate.

---

Callan Young DEREK HOFFMAN

They always say that being passionate about something is the most attractive state to be in.

Hopefully he was still seeing the road and not just his mind’s eye. Straying off the beaten path could be a wonderful thing, but not like this.

“...Alright, hero. When you talk like that, I’ll have to do my best to make your dream come true.”

She chuckled again—lightly at him, amiably with him.

His alternating wavelengths of gregariousness and gravitas didn’t seem to affect her. In a world of humans, tragedy, violence, and loss follow as a matter of course. To Yujin, the system of gyms and structured matches was just a faded fantasy. Creatures of mass destruction should be used to their utmost potential; the slumbering gun beneath her coat jacket called for it.

“I’m not very good with theatrics, but I can think of a few tricks with electronics.”

A pause as she glanced out at those shaped clouds again, drifting across the sky like battleships.

“I like your theme.” As much as she could like anything about a pokemon gym.

---

Navy

The skarmory and its rider sail high above, delivering their fell swoops.

As Yujin climbed, she noticed that she heard no particularly painful squawks, felt no bodies fall past her and saw no feathers drifting in the air. Rangers continued to be soft, no matter the region.

The tower itself wasn’t in bad condition though every now and then she stopped to apply on the weakened steel something that looked suspiciously like black gel.

Halfway up, she returned the thumbs up to the ranger-rider.

At the top, she began working on the damaged antennae.

By the bottom, Derek would come across the porygon-z named Byzantine. Eerie as it was, if Derek had experience with the species, perhaps he would notice the swirl of its eyes and crackle of energy as it watched the last threat fly away.

And if he didn’t do anything to stop it, it would fire a concentrated hyper beam directly into the sky after the swellow.

---

DEREK HOFFMAN

“...Mm? Ah, right.”

As Derek slowed, Yujin would glide past him. Her eyes were wholly focused on the two devices in her hands: the left, an Interpol-encrypted PDA; the right, a digital abstractor, with all the functions of the usual inclinometer, compass, echolocator, and—

Basically, it encompassed most of the usual cave surveying tools in digital form. Similar to how a phone knows which way is up and down, or how 360 cameras can edge locate—

Etcetera, etcetera approximately modern technology.

A soft, beeping light that periodically emitted from the abstractor’s box captured the information around them, displaying a rough rendering saved in her handheld.

She almost forgot to look up every now and then. Field service engineering had changed a lot these days.

“A bit further down seems to be a plateau. It’s as good a place as any to make the first camp, no?”

Though the proximity of the nihilego soured that premise.

---

YUJIN HA's learned experience as an interpol agent must be advantageous in some way. ? but also probably later too

Callan Young DEREK HOFFMAN

THEY'RE QUITE SYMMETRICAL.

"I, too, sometimes struggle to find properly fitted shirts."

Tales of the inexplicable power shift into Hoenn regales her ears. Her resulting mirth is private. Yes, so I have heard.

She stepped into the passenger seat seamlessly, placed the suitcase in her lap, and then proceeded to rest her elbow against the window. Eyes flickered over to the driver once as he mourned an old sentimentality. Yujin, who owns nearly nothing and leaves nearly no trace behind, among other odd points, had nothing to say and therefore said nothing at all.

Though the mention of Rocket is always a curiosity.

It was a perfectly ordinary conversation they were having, and he was quite good at keeping it going. Look, there was even a cloud shaped like an ampharos in the sky! “That sounds lovely. I’m glad I brought my bathing suit.”

After they started moving she would dip them back into the shallows of business. 

“I’ve already been briefed, but you are right here. Why don’t you tell me about your ideas for this gym?”

---

Navy

He was honest. That was good; honesty was the quality in which all her scant relationships required in order to ford.

And their politics align at least to some extent. Yujin said nothing more, watching his gaze flicker from face to plate with the dogged drag of a native bemoaning the state of his people.

It was fortunate that the proprietor had already turned around by the time Callan made his move. Half-ready to waltz out of the establishment, Yujin was accosted by the oldest trick in the book… and yet it just keeps on working.

Shared was only a brief kiss; just enough for her eyelids to nearly shutter closed, her tongue to nearly taste him, but not quite. It was over before it began, and she did her best not to pout.

“...Oh! Hold on.”

She had to lick her thumb and then tiptoe to brush the hint of red off his bottom lip. It would be a tragedy if he went back to the office covered in her rouge. What would Mandy say?

“Ah, but I’m afraid I won’t be in town tomorrow night. And neither will you.” The red of his ears are distracting in a cute way. She used one finger to press against his chest. “Check your email in the next few hours, Mr. Young. I’ll be in your care for a little while longer.”

Yujin would put a hand on his shoulder and lead them out of the restaurant. She was immune to the forest of eyes now trained upon them, but she wasn’t most people.

(Callan seemed experienced and confident. He could handle himself, so she probably didn’t need to have the talk with him.

...

Yet.)

---

Callan Young

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“You take requests, yes?”

Club Olympus was an expansive venue. How many booths could be counted, how many heads in each, how many bottles of champagne stuffed in iced buckets? Even from the front desk, it was boggling.

Her smile was as practiced as their best entertainer: leading and mysterious. “I would like to see Jasmine.”

Yujin was no stranger to sinister or sultry places, but she confessed that host clubs were a first.

That being said, she did some homework at least. The Blair girl worked tonight and the shift was early.

But barring that, the woman had traveled a long way. She was going to get results here. It would just be one way or the other.

---

Jasmine Blair

He’s an earthly person. If he could feel beyond his own calluses, he’d notice the atlas of scars on her end of the handshake.

A PI U can trust, and coupled with the good-natured gesture none-the-less. At his mercy, she couldn’t help but give a delighted chuckle.

Though she never did say where she might know him from.

They walked down the pier. Seagulls hawked in the sky above, as did the stray tern. They eyed the occasional gleam of metal on Yujin’s attire, but perhaps they could sense her grudge against their kind.

“Are they now?”

She put a hand to her brow for the dramatic purpose of looking about.

“If you have surfboards here, do let me know. Maybe I’ll see for myself after work.”

It was a bold declaration he made, and unfortunately to an Alolan surfer as well.

Before long they were close enough to see their darkened silhouettes in the truck’s coat.

“I am with Interpol, Mr. Navidson.” It was no secret. “This is one stop of many.”

---

Navy

“The pleasure is mine.”

What a radiant smile. Like walking into a church, standing before stained windows, and wondering why you didn’t burn in polychrome.

The sunglasses were lowered with a single fingertip, though the eyes that peered over them seemed the same make.

“I hope you don’t mind if I start with Mr. Navidson... for now.” (She didn't aspire to be everyone else.)

She offered her free hand between them. It was a bridge between the formal and the casual, the monoliths of the city and the charm of the islands.

Then, a grin:

“...Forgive me, but you have been on T.V. before?”

---

Navy

It was unsaid, but perhaps able to be inferred, that Yujin actually was proud of her chopsticks skills.

Every chapter started on an all-too-stiff bed in a motel out by the wayside: she would get bored, she would get creative, and if that failed, then she would get even.

“You’re so interested in my… clever mind.”

A grin, but quickly fading away into thoughtfulness. She did not reveal secrets but people understood when an answer was evasive, and they did not appreciate it.

Yujin tapped her chopsticks against her lip, pondering not her answer but what she wanted to tell him. Yet he was staring so intently, she just had to match him eye for eye; nibbling at the tip where his mouth had been just a moment before.

“...Power, strength, skill? I think:

Weak enemies showcase your power. Strong enemies showcase your skill.
The trainers of this land have dined well on the feast of its resources and legendary beasts.”

---

Callan Young