HARVESTING

be sure to visit the pretty petal flower shop near rustboro!

1X tamato berry
1X grepa berry
1X rabuta berry

(all consumed by maki. garden link )

TOTAL

do come again!

00 PD

maki has taken something of a backseat role in the party. rather than actively engaging anyone, she's mostly been observing while she enjoys the various amenities. gambling is unbecoming for a yukimura, so she's never been in a casino before. clad in a plain black suit with a white dress shirt, she's been wandering the halls. this continues until she's called for the white elephant gift exchange, in which she receives a lovely pen set. all in all, she supposes she got lucky; she does enjoy calligraphy, and her more old fashioned relatives would likely enjoy receiving physical letters from her.

she's about to go back to wandering when she spies jayden cross . curious as to what he got in the exchange, maki changes course and heads over to him. she offers him a small smile and a polite tilt of the head. "hello, jayden," she greets him casually. "how have you been enjoying the party?" even though they know each other rather well, she keeps up with the usual pleasantries. etiquette is etched into her by her bloodline, and it's not something that's likely to come out any time soon.

looks like maki's still got it! it helps that she does so much physical training for her role in team rocket. battling pokemon is one thing, but most people don't train for combat situations themselves. that's where rocket has the advantage; the people who join less likely to fear getting their own hands dirty, rather than relying on their pokemon to protect them.

for some reason, maki feels... guilty? as if simply by dancing, she's betraying her family's wishes for herself. that thought gives her enough pause as she gets a distant look in her eye, staring through the wall, frown etched onto her face. the moment is over soon enough, as she shakes herself out of her trance. "we're almost out of time," she says. she only rented this room in the dance studio for an hour. "we should go."

she turns the music off entirely, cutting off a track right in the middle. "...hopefully you'll be able to put this lesson to good use in your next contest," maki comments. is she actually looking forward to that? how odd...

[ Momo Sakai ]

the dance is a little clumsy, given how long it's been since maki has done anything like this. there's been a few galas where she's danced with her brother, but that was a show they put on to impress their stockholders and business partners more than anything. it was more restrained, less emotive, just a script they were following. even her movement had been restricted by the expensive dresses she wore to those events.

her she has more freedom, and in some respects she's not sure what to do with it. while they dance, there's moments of brief hesitation as maki decides what to do next. for the most part, she finds herself leading, but there are times her hesitance would allow momo to take over if she pleased.

the feeling is entirely different from dancing with her family. maki loses herself in it, and it seems like a much longer stretch of time than it actually is. as the song finally hits its climax, she twirls and then lifts momo into the air, just for a moment, so her feet leave the ground. the gesture seems to come easily to her, her arms not even shaking, betraying that she's much stronger than she looks.

then the song ends, and maki stops moving abruptly, like a puppet with its strings cut.

[ Momo Sakai ]

the squawk of the bird pokemon alerts maki to the danger, but there's no possible way out of that aerial ace. it strikes her froslass hard, the pokemon letting out a cry of pain. immediately maki shifts into battle mode. "don't let it get away!" she commands. her froslass's moves won't be able to keep up with it if it does, so the pokemon reaches its arms out and attempts to wrap them around the squawkabilly to prevent it from escaping.

if they can just hit it once or twice, their type advantage should do the trick... "frost breath." the froslass breathes out painfully cold air, an ice type attack that's always critical if it hits. the air around them immediately grows colder. maki glances at jayden out of the corner of her eye for a brief moment, then turns back to the fight at hand. she knows he can handle himself well enough. what's more important is dealing with this nuisance so it can't alert anyone else as to what's happening.

[ jayden cross luke hyacinth ]

SIGN-UP (RSVP)

CHARACTER RSVPing: MAKI YUKIMURA[break]
ROCKET POSITION: grunt[break]
POKEMON: houndoom[break]
PLUS ONE?: --[break]
WHITE ELEPHANT GIFT?: an impossibly soft and VERY expensive black scarf that would almost be a waste to actually wear.[break]
EVENT CONTRIBUTION?: erm. her presence <3
[break]

she watches carefully with sharp eyes. naturally, since momo has only just learned the moves, they're not quite as refined as someone who's spent months practicing the basics. but for a beginner, she's doing well. is it because of her eagerness? maki was this eager, she remembers, once upon a time. as a child she'd wanted so badly to impress her parents, so that she'd thrown herself into her studies and paid attention to little else. gradually, the eagerness had faded into a numb oblivion as maki forfeited her right to a normal life.

well, she'd never had that 'right' anyway, being born into the yukimura family. the scope of their power and influence left no room for casual pursuits.

her phone automatically skips to the next song, one with a little more energy. pausing for a moment, maki makes a decision. she reaches her hands above her head and twirls them in the same sign she'd just taught momo, and then extends a hand. "shall we dance together, then?" there is the tiniest, faintest gleam of rebellion in the gesture, though momo won't know it.

[ Momo Sakai ]

so much for the subtle approach.

the gardevoir panic, not understanding what's happening. maki pulls her mask up to cover her face and follows after jayden, keeping quiet. she hovers near the trees, watching as each gardevoir is cut down and captured. they clearly weren't expecting to be accosted here, seeing how few of them fight back.

silently, maki releases her froslass, ordering it to hover closer to the treeline to keep an eye on the trainer lurking nearby. the only thing left to do is wait. she eyes jayden's movements, noting how easy it is for him and his pokemon to battle multiple opponents. despite her training, she's unsure she'd be able to manage if their roles were swapped. she'd always been taught with more of a focus on stealth and subterfuge, which is why she suggested the deception earlier.

she waits to make her move, her froslass hiding in the trees above.

[ jayden cross luke hyacinth ]

maki doesn't flinch even once as dorian plays his game with their captive. not even when the blade comes down and severs the man's finger, screams of pain filling his throat but unable to escape due to the gag in his mouth. she goes to work on the other prisoners, crouching down by them with a small smile on her face. "if you tell us what's been going on, we'll be sure to show mercy," she says, kindness with no true intent behind her words. "i have no desire to harm you beyond what's necessary."

her lies are coated with fly-catching honey, and one of them takes the bait before dorian can sever another finger. "p-please!" the woman who charged into the window has woken up. "we meet in the basement of the lilycove department store! i-i can give you names and our next meeting date!"

maki stands back up. she pulls her phone out and looks to dorian, "very well. tell us everything you know." she prepares to take notes.

[ dorian westcliff ]

maki steps back to observe, and nods to momo. "better," she says, which is high praise from her. "once you learn the basics, you can always adapt it more to your... style." and when it comes to dance, the basics are incredibly important. despite how boring it could be to practice the same thing over and over, practice ensured that you wouldn't hurt yourself. that's why maki hasn't touched upon the subject of ballet in a while; she knows that if she tries too hard, she might overdo it.

(that, and maybe she's still a little sour about being told to discontinue it, deep down.)

"there's many other ballet mimes," maki says. "it'd be impossible to go through all of them... you can always look them up later." honestly, she only remembers a few of them anyway.

with that, she pulls out her phone and turns on some music. it's a simple piano song, easy to keep up with. "you can try incorporating the movements i showed you, if you'd like." maki stands back, still facing momo, like a stern but gentle teacher. to anyone who knows her darker side, they might be shocked to see how easily she takes to instruction.

[ Momo Sakai ]

maki ponders the question, turning ideas over in her head. the situation isn't favorable; if they confront the other trainer, they may chase away the gardevoir. but if they don't act, the stranger might get to the gardevoir before them... the best way to deal with things would be to avoid a fight out in the open.

"...one of us should try and lure the other person away," she finally concludes. "we could pretend to be on opposite sides. if you fake an attack on me, maybe our mystery guest will attempt to defend me. and while you're distracting them, i can sneak away and capture some gardevoir." she knows well enough that she can use her disarming appearance to her advantage. and if the other person here has no desire to be a hero, they can still ambush them and take them out together.

"so we need to draw their attention without alerting the gardevoir," maki concludes.

[ jayden cross luke hyacinth ]

as she proceeds, maki starts to hear what sounds like a pokemon. it's chanting something unintelligible, and maki follows the sound until she comes across a braixen that's twirling the stick usually kept in its tail. she thinks it's using lucky chant, so she waits and watches as the braixen practices. after a little while, though, she loses her patience and releases her houndoom. she commands it to use crunch on the braixen, who doesn't see the attack coming.

the fox falls back, letting out a cry of pain. it retaliates by extending its claws and scratching at houndoom, but the attack glances off the canine's boney armor. while the braixen is still in range, maki's houndoom opens its jaws and lunges once more. the attack crackles with electricity, which courses through the braixen's veins and leaves it lying there, paralyzed.

maki throws the pokeball. time to get the hell out of here.