“Tutoring is such a nice word. It also sounds expensive.”[break][break]

All her most memorable lessons were the ones that left stress fractures in her bones.[break][break]

“Ah, these things?” Yujin beams like a mother showing off her children. “This is an Aether Foundation prototype. You know how it is. What the public gets is some ten years behind what the government is playing with.”[break][break]

She tests the device’s foundation with her foot. “It picks up a bunch of specialized readings. They have a hypothesis about Z-Power, so I have to go and stake them in every rift.” Even she didn’t fully understand it or even most of the things derived in the holy terra of their labs. She just knew how to use them and fix them.[break][break]

And with that done, all they had to do was cross another cable-chasm to reach the defunct power station that was still smoking.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

“Aw, would that be nice?”[break][break]

The grin flashes quickly before settling into melancholy. She leans back too, letting the sun cast its drowsy spell and the wind carry away all intransigence.[break][break]

“Actually, I’m not sure how I feel about it. Living or dying, I go at it alone.”[break][break]

Every pause is accentuated by the slow demise of her cone.[break][break]

“Stay too long in one place, then people get to know you, yes? They remember your mistakes. They learn what makes you tick.”[break][break]

All deeply undesirable outcomes.

“Of course. That's why you're both here.”[break][break]

Being particularly fond of her fingers, she does not deign to pet.[break][break]

"I came a long way because I heard this week's theme was wrestling."[break][break]

Yujin gestures towards the open floor of the dojo where the latest contestants are just now shuffling out, led by a strutting quaquaval in winning form.[break][break]

“Up for a round? She'll never grow big if you just watch.”

A meteorite shower cascades to the earth—each blow a gaping wound on the pockmarked face of the desert.[break][break]

“Casualties are paperwork.”[break][break]

She holds in one hand a device that whispers fraudulently a language in only its basest morphemes, meaning passing between the billows of dust.[break][break]

“And paperwork is the eternal enemy.”[break][break]

The polteageist next to her clinks in agreement, weakening the resulting attacks with STRENGTH SAP.[break][break]

The recipient is a face she recognizes from a dossier, made even more familiar with the investigation on a certain Galarian princess and baron she'd recently met.[break][break]

ij8z1_Cy +10 terrain

Using:[break]
STRENGTH SAP (SHIELD/HINDER)[break]
GIGA DRAIN (STRIKE/SHIELD)[break]
AROMATHERAPY (HEAL)[break]
TEATIME (SUPPORT)[break]
SHELL SMASH (BOOST)[break]
WILL-O-THE-WISP (AFFLICT)[break][break]
On: Remiel Calcifet
[break][break]
HP: 3/3[break]
Riddle: "Steel"

[attr="class","bottom"]

She can't take five steps outside Mauville without things already going wrong.[break][break]

Her devices crackle and short out. No amount of cursing, prayer, and mechanical rite can recover them.[break][break]

Most annoyingly—she was close to breaking a personal record in tetris.[break][break]

She tosses a pokeball at the pack of manectric idling nearby, and lightning melodramatically throws her into relief.[break][break]

"Get off my lawn!"[break][break]

mgfOD93_

A sign by any other name.[break][break]

Yujin retrieves a chip in Tyrian purple from the klefki, slotting it neatly into her PDA. The screen illuminates their surroundings, and for a time, she watches it more closely than her own two feet.[break][break]

It beeps now and then—an incorrigible hymn for a dubious tech-priest.[break][break]

“And your sword skills? Are they still as sharp as I recall?”[break][break]

Galatine certainly looks none worse for wear.[break][break]

“I wouldn’t mind getting bullied again. I’ve become reliant on guns.”[break][break]

They climb a few sinewy cables and crest a low-lying plateau with three smooth-faced monoliths atop. “Ah, here’s a good spot! Hold.” [break][break]

It is a simple manner to thrust three heavy black rods into the onyx soil, then secure them together in a kind of tripod interlocking that seems almost as alien as its surroundings.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

“I may be going the same way.”[break][break]

A posting of indefinite duration; a grand migration of so many agents to Hoenn, like carrier pidgeys all returning home at their master’s call.[break][break]

“Alive, but how whole? Do let me know if you need a referral for evaluation.”[break][break]

She tuts. “Only because the people of this region seem to suffer constant, debilitating psychic damage.”[break][break]

And on cue, a bloom of electricity unfurls in the distance. The massive cables cut otherworldly shapes through the blinding flash, and taunts them as the roar of the spark arrives a moment later.[break]

06 involve the detonation of voltorb or electrode in some way.

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig [break]

“And you’re still a tall glass of water, Mr. Wledig.”[break][break]

With a flick of her wrist, her titanium briefcase snaps open. Inside are a motley array of tools: survey equipment, a PDA, a quietly concealed gun. Around the handle itself is a klefki with microchips looped around it instead of keys.[break][break]

With the sporadic lightning overhead, they gleam in all directions.[break][break]

The briefcase snaps shut and Yujin nods, leading the party forward with the klefki rising from dormancy by her side.[break][break]

“I’ll need to plant my sensors in a few places, but other than that, we’re free to investigate as you see fit.”[break][break]

Her gaze slides over to him from the corner of her eye.[break][break]

“...How are you doing?”

[attr="class","bottom"]Gwyar Wledig[break]

She mulls the words over, chews them up and spits them out raw and bleeding.[break][break]

“There’s no purpose. I just do what I’m told. That’s okay too, right?”[break][break]

Validation for a pawn when the kings and queens have the power to turn the whole world off.[break][break]

Yujin notices not the darkness on the earth’s curvature: something different, something rich and strange.[break][break]

Trust? “No.” Her other half died a long time ago but her eyes are a reminder. They shine like gunmetal—cold and unsure.[break][break]

A loud groan punctuates the surroundings as the generator sputters to life. Almost done. “Oh, please don’t help. If anything happens to you, my descendants will still be paying off the debt...”

“An understatement if ever I’ve heard one.”[break][break]

Her dessert of choice is a pure mound of vanilla, no toppings, no specials, a bland abomination courtesy of a life lived more carefully and wretchedly than aught else.[break][break]

“You know, Mr. Graves—”[break][break]

They had reached first name basis by now. Her version of affection was simply pulling at the last name in all directions, like death by quartering.[break][break]

“—my most recent posting in Hoenn has no end date. None at all.”[break][break]

A fat-faced fidough ambles by, followed by a couple.[break][break]

“A lot of us were sent here this time. A lot of things are mobilizing.[break][break]

Ah… it’s enough to make me want seconds.”