mar gets close to the furret, but she misjudges how much the sand is going to eat the force she exudes when she launches herself at it, and she falls short of grabbing its tail, hands clutching at sand instead.

meanwhile, clobbopus has grown annoyed with mar's order to stay away. having no opponent, clobbpus creates a pile of wet sand right by the waves to punch into oblivion. capsakid, on the other hand, is uninterested in such stupid wastes of time but is also unwilling to ignore mar's order. she tries to negotiate with clobbopus to knock it off, but the fighter is uncaring of her plan.

mar pulls herself off the warm sand with a growl, but the furret is clearly un-catchable.

it's just a phone. she can insist it was recovered by Ranger scouts or destroyed by them while scouring the area for it, so there was nothing for mar to retrieve. a failed mission, but not by mar's hands. it's an easier pill to swallow, and it'll keep the higher-ups from grilling her.

"get back on the ship!" she shouts down the beach, letting her gaze wander towards where the furret skittered off to.

paxton concordas

☉

in the blink of an eye, mar's nemesis makes itself known.

"ye!" she cries out, pointing at the offending furret. its wide eyes do not display innocence but rather a teasing maliciousness that mar can't let go. clobbopus makes a battle cry, but she gestures at him with an open palm, stopping him. "nay! this rascal is mine!" foolishly, she pursues it, not as light-footed as the rodent pokemon. her momentum is eaten by the sand as she does her best to race after the normal-type. "i'll drown ye if ye don't relent!"

paxton concordas

☉

"cap, what are ye thinking for this one?" she turned to the grass-type and let her choose. capsakid grabbed jasmine flowers and hibiscus.

"together?"

mar raised a doubtful brow. jasmine was refreshing, and she liked their appearance. it was by no means her favorite, which would go to the iris, the flower of kalos. still, mar accepted the jasmine and hibiscus and got to work with her mixing and flavoring. she did her best to balance the flavors of freshness and bitterness from each flower respectively. her tea was going to taste pretty tart.

and then capsakid held popping boba in her hands. "yer kidding, right?" but the capsakid looked upset at her question, so mar relented. winning the contest would be meaningless if it cost her the loyalty of her capsakid, so she let the pokemon fill the cup with the annoying-texture boba. then, mar poured her tea over. as a final touch, she placed an iris, complementing the deep pink color of the drink. "aye, the iris fits because it's me favorite, but the drink won't be as sweet as it is pretty. no, this will be a little more bitter than ye might be used to." still, she hoped for the best.

FJFPvWCL

☉

the guy could sure put on a show. mar was glad he was physically involved and she wasn't. he looked pretty comfortable balancing up on the fountain, which she would never get caught dead doing. "skrelp, keep up the razzle dazzle," she called out lowly. the skrelp seemed confused, so she gestured for the seahorse to go big. however, the skrelp misinterpreted the gesture to mean her sludge bomb.

she broke the surface of the murky water and generated a sludge bomb to shoot into the air in an arc that would go into the crowd and poison the kids. "no!" she whisper-shouted, making an angry snap at the skrelp who didn't put two and two together. mar covered her face in her hands, unable to watch as the skrelp hurt the kids.

Josh Devlin

☉

mar's eyebrows lifted as she made out a woman on a starfish. hmm. she didn't look like a criminal. "cap. let's shine some light on this, aye?" capsakid cast sunny day, improving her speed. mar braced herself as the starmie surfed into her ship, rocking it heavily. hmm. should she try a little fun and games with this one? she wasn't well equipped for an all-out battle, and maybe she could talk herself out of it. after all, she'd dumped her trafficking cargo out, so no one should be able to determine her allegiance or activities from her ship alone.

"hey, what are ye doin?!" she steadied herself on her feet, almost knocked over by the starmie's assault. she held her hands up and out in a surrendering position. "who are ye? i'll call the police!" or the maritime something something -- she didn't know, she didn't call on law enforcement in her short period of time in hoenn, though she hoped invoking the police would make her seem like a civilian. "this ship is a family heirloom, ye twit!" yes, she was just an angered civilian, not a criminal doing suspicious things on the water.

Shalin Nariya

☉

the simulation was overwhelming. all the same, she was ecstatic about it. she came to hoenn for these kinds of opportunities, the unusual and powerful technologies and myth that filled the region. mar is aware, first, of her partner, the far more experienced rocket that graciously undertook the simulation with her. then, she recognizes the white-haired witch. and finally, slowly, she realizes they are surrounded.

mar almost misses the woman's questions. she turns to her partner in crime, considering the question. hm. she has to impress her rocket senior, and she has to make it through the simulation without hitting a dead end. "yes, we belong here." she answered with more confidence than she felt. she wanted to know what it felt like to fail the simulation too, endlessly curious, but she needed an initial success if she wanted a reinvitation. "we're always exactly where we're supposed to be."

Xenon Antheil

☉

she should've known it was too good to be true.

before she could explain herself, the kid was mouthing off. "what'd ye call me?" mar snapped her fingers. while the shroodle created a mist, capsakid and tinkatuff switched places, the tinkatuff knocking the electro ball with a skitter smack to disperse the energy. capsakid dove through the acid mist and used crunch on the shroodle.

"running yer mouth like that without knowing who yer dealing with is an easy way to get hurt," mar warned her kalosian accent as she approached the ginger woman. if the ranger didn't defend herself, mar'd have her hands curled up in her collar, face to face and snarling.

Gwendolyn Conway

☉

"wow 'em?" mar's face split into a grin. "aye, i got just the thing!" she let skrelp into the water tank. the deep-sea seahorse created a hydro pump directly above herself into the air, creating a strong fountain of water that sprinkled down like pleasant rain over her.

skrelp dove underwater, creating a smokescreen that the kids could see murk up the water before the seahorse charged into the air, spinning and releasing droplets of water from her form as she did. "aye, she's a sturdy thing," mar said loud enough for the kids to hear. "from the depths, she can withstand a lot of pressure and a lot of extreme temperatures. her dark coloring lets her hide from predators in the deeps."

Josh Devlin

☉

"yep, skrelpy's gonna do the job. ye won't even know what hit ye." she was confident despite the worker's misgivings. the worker handed her participant wristband and the pirate walked her skrelp over to backstage. skrelp wasn't the prettiest looking water pokemon, but mar had a love of the sea and the pokemon within it. despite not looking like a primarina, the seadragon could still hold her own. besides, the mermaid show wasn't all looks. skrelp could show off some of her moves to impress the audience.

"aye," mar said to her skrelp as she got some looks from other contestants, "they doubt deep sea creatures but i know ye got this in the bag." the audience was largely kids, and mar wanted them to appreciate deep sea pokemon just as much as the more show-offy coastal ones.

☉

mar stood with a foot hiked on the bowsprit at the tip of her ship, leaning out on the long spike of wood as she peered through her nautical telescope. "caps, there's not a lot o' folks comin' out this far." things had been fairly boring where she was at the sea. fairly new to hoenn, she'd been slow to respond to the call to battle out on the coast, so she'd missed a lot of initial combat. she spent some time securing intel, but now she was patrolling the waters for any do-gooder rangers.

capsakid hummed beside her, amusing mar. "maybe we'll close up early, eh? get you some shroomish to skirmish with." the capsakid liked fighting other grass types, though they weren't fights she could win easily til she evolved.

oh. what was that? a blip on the horizon, something moving in the air? she doubted a rocket would be flying out here given that her ship was pretty visible and many knew she was out here now to report on league movements far at sea.

Shalin Nariya

☉

"my dear," mar began as aqua finished, leaning forward, "it is a rookie mistake to assume anything about me." she slowly pulled her pokeballs from her belt, initially in their minimized form, but growing in her hands at her behest. "look here." she released all of her pokemon, putting her trio of trouble on display. "me team is healthy and happy. i care. do i hug trees to save pidgeys? no. but."

she could not summon dhelmise for aqua's eyes, as it stayed by the ship loyally. it rarely ever saw combat or anything other than the seas. "ye believe i act to serve me best interests. trust, then, that it isn't in me best interest to burn forests or dry up wetlands. indeed, i seek treasure in hoenn. destruction of the region only makes those searches more difficult, makes it harder to find terrain described in lore and follow maps transcribed in myth." it was completely true. "what i want from ye is yer understanding of pokemon and the environment. yer clever. yer always ten steps ahead. most importantly, yer devious. i'm not asking fer yer life or fer ye to betray yer principals. i just want ye to stand with me fer as long as our goals align, aye?"

Aqua Kennedy

☉