mar lit up at the sight of treasure. she would normally let no one touch a quarry like that, but she'd known trinity for a while and was willing to put her short term desires aside for long term goals like a good partnership. it was character development, or something dumb like that.

as it was, she was very confused at trinity's disappointment at shifting through the gold. "ain't that a good thing? we can buy ye some hair dye." she laughed, but it was only a reference to conversation they'd had before. mar's hair was naturally brown with red dyed tips, but trinity stood out because of her modern style and perfectly gray-silver hair that would've looked out-of-date on anyone that wasn't as sharp as her.

mar let trinity lift the chest, though she still didn't get the disappointment. "kind of an easy grab, all things considered." easy, of course, was a trigger word that brought karmaic justice swiftly. a skorpi darted from the ground and nearly stung mar immediately, but the rocket was quick to lift her foot out of the way of its stinger and back down onto it, safely away from the pincher. "so tired of the stupid bugs here!" she tossed a pokeball at the subdued pokemon. they were destined for the black market, and she'd laugh as they were sold into a terrible fate.

catching skorupi

trinity beckman

☉

if the chaotic development of the scene unfolding had any impact on mar's nerves, it didn't show. in fact, she looked bored. and a bored mar was usually the most dangerous, but then the expression broke into a smirk as trinity scolded her. "should've had the foresight to stand in a better spot," she said as if trinity had made a foolish decision rather than a series of tactical moves.

but she liked to rile up the younger rocket. "let's wrap up the stupid --"

"gabriella, don't give up!" some stupid-looking trainer appeared on the back of a togekiss before them both, appearing just beside absol in a mere moment. damn, those togekiss were faster than she thought the blob-y things were.

the trainer activated something on his wrist, and it took far too long for her to register it as a mega stone. "get back!" she activated her pokeball to force clobbopus to withdrawal, knowing the sea pokemon would choose to fight blindly rather than surrender or retreat. as she did, the absol reacted to the absolite, taking its mega form and gaining wings, shaking off the impact of the conditions they'd put it under.

"this just got so much worse," mar groaned.

trinity beckman

☉

"slow down!" she shouted at capsakid. the little villain had been her most obedient pokemon besides dhelmise, but lately, the grass type had been very disobedient. she'd also had an excess of energy. it made mar think the pokemon was on the brink of evolution. she didn't know how to help capsakid across the border between her form now and her future one, but she wanted to have some good memories with capsakid before the cute little form left her forever.

☉

the phone explodes in her hand.

mar stares at her empty hand, blinking. and then it fully registers.

her hand only aches slightly. whatever knocked the phone out had an angle to cause the phone splinter without exploding a hole into her hand. she instinctively looks up, but the sky is free of all but pelipper and wingull; she knew neither bird could create controlled explosions. capsakid had already begun searching the seaside for a target, but no ship had cannonballs small enough to make such a shot. clobbopus, on the other hand, started crawling up to the grass, moving in-land to find the assailant.

shit. she could rescue the sim card from the debris and take that in. rocket would have some tech-y like that, though she didn't know anyone by name. still, she was intended to deliver intel, so the sim card would have to do. she poked through the debris in the hot sand for the card.

paxton concordas

☉

capsakid and clobbopus continued to shovel through the sand a foot or two before moving on while mar walked the length of the beach to find anything obviously disturbed. the ocean was powerful, and it would resettle the coast's unruly sands in mere minutes, so she wasn't too surprised to see that the sands looked normal despite an encrypted phone being stashed here earlier.

aha!

clobbopus made a victorious sound. mar turned around to sea the pokemon holding a metal hoop earring. "no," she said with measured patience, feeling irritated more by being 'landed' than by clobbopus (arceus, she wanted to be back in her boat right now), "it's a phone, silly." she measured out its dimensions with her fingers. he saluted and got back to searching.

capsakid tapped her calf, causing her to turn around and see the grass type holding the encrypted league phone. mar patted the capsakid's head affectionately as she accepted the phone. it looked nothing special, except it was clearly a Ranger-issued device and covered in an ugly phone case meant to survive the environmental disasters they oft responded to.

paxton concordas

☉

"aye, i'm a treasure hunter." she beamed as she confessed it. "i hail from kalos, but i've been all the world. i love myths and ruins and legends and treasure. the reward of solving some old riddle, of following some incomplete map, of getting through old defense systems to secure a prize... there's nothing better." her eyes were alight with passion as she spoke, walking quickly through the tunnel as she forgot her leisurely pace in favor of her excitement.

she only remembered herself when clobbopus cried out, tackled by a perrserker. "ah, i've forgotten myself." she laughed a little, rubbing at her eyes with one hand. "do ye ever pursue treasure?" it wouldn't hurt her to find more hunting allies in hoenn. networking was one of her strong suits, though she sometimes self-sabotaged with the tunnel vision of treasure. it was easy to forget the ethics of others when she was willing to do anything to find new artifacts.

"ye know," she said as she tossed a pokeball at perrserker, "i think i could take a teddiursa in a fight. not all pokemon are stronger than us." she laughed, amused at the visual her hypothetical fight offered.

catching perrserker

Mika Nakayama

☉

this was just for fun, but seeing how creative everyone else was being made mar feel more competitive than before. more importantly, she didn't want to be outdone by some do-gooder nerd. "ye aren't ready for this one," she muttered under her breath as she got to work. she had many choices, but she felt people would go for a sweet berry approach to the challenge.

she had to stand out. she opted for bitter melon, which became a gorgeous green color as she worked the ingredients together. it looked refreshing and smelled refreshing. more importantly, it was the same saturated green as a tropius' neck collar leaves, though it was slightly lighter in color. then, she complemented the bitterness with a sweet cherry-cherubi flavor. the bitter and tart-sweet would be acceptable to some palettes and not others, making it a controversial combination, but if the right judge tasted it, it would pay off incredibly well.

the drink had an almost-excessive amount of pearls. the green mix filled the cup to the brim, with a mint leaf on the top. it was primarily for decoration, but the colors would play well. capsakid was happy to hold the drink up for the judges, her own green playing well with the theme of the beverage.
 
r9956uZr

☉

"bienvenido," mar greeted with a widening of her hands, a pleasant grin on her face. her posture was very relaxed. she gestured to an open camping chair on the other side of the bonfire from herself, bento box on its arm. "please, come join me." she brought one arm to rest on the back of her chair, bent at the elbow and opening her body posture to look both open and non-threatening. it was cocky, as she knew how dangerous this individual was, but she wanted to express her lack of desire for conflict quickly.

"i will cut to the chase. i think ye have a lot of promise, and i want to help ye achieve it." her kalosian accent came through, mixed with something distinct, a quick and intimate dialect shared between criminals of the high seas. "ye have a knack for trouble - good, artful trouble. i'm a longtime... enjoyer o' trouble. but not enough people share the art o' it. the love o' it."

she let her words hang in the air, not wanting to overwhelm the kid. "but ye do. if ye want more opportunities, more resources to do it? i can help ye out. in exchange, we can collaborate on some common goals."

Aqua Kennedy

☉

mar opened the door with a wide grin. "aye, yer right on time." she stepped out, dressed in a similar outfit from before but her bodysuit was green, blending in better with the jungle around them. her braided hair was put up so she could wear a bucket hat. a smidge of sunscreen was present on her nose, not rubbed in all the way.

"we are in it now," she announced. "let's get into the treasure, yea? we gotta go down the path down here," she explained as she walked to the back of the cabana, gesturing to the descending and winding path that went to the base of the pyramid-adjacent rock formation below. heavy grass obscured the path, but the duo would make it to the base before long. it was warding off the pokemon and travelling underground beneath the structure that would consume most of their time.

"d'ye wanna take the lead, or shall i test out that mighty cutlass?" she said almost as an afterthought, clearly more enthused at treasure hunting than claiming the goods of her cutlass. it wasn't a testament to aurelie's skill, which was obviously top-shelf, but to her desire to explore and her willingness to earn the goods before wielding them. for all mar's self-serving qualities, she loved a skillful woman and hated burning bridges with talent.

Aurelie Lefevre

☉

mar had proven herself enough in her short time in hoenn, what with her expert trafficking skills and nose for good trouble. however, she had caught whispers that were suspicious of her, that she had less roots in hoenn than the average rocket. she lived on her boat, which was never tied down anywhere for long; she had a long history of travelling several regions, with little rhyme or reason. and so she thought: she should get hitched to trinity to demonstrate some roots in hoenn.

instead, she caught wind of an ecoterrorist tearing up the coast until they got up in-land to the mountains. it was a very good, very tasty brand of trouble, that ecoterrorism. it required intellect, motive, creativity... but most importantly, passion. you could not teach passion to a criminal; she knew, she'd tried.

so here she had the makings of a protege. and she had slipped the little terrorist a small note and a bento box asking to meet near the top of mt. pyre, promising a similar mind fueled by a love of the world.

and here she sat by a bonfire as the evening sky set, waiting.

Aqua Kennedy

☉

mika's perspective was fresh. if mar could find her in a situation to make a questionable decision, perhaps she could gauge mika's capacity for rocket work. or, if the decision made is distasteful enough, blackmail her into it. but mar preferred adopting women in the rocket life in the hopes of making them better and giving them opportunities to take what they deserved from the world, as she had with trinity and aqua.

"clobbopus can definitely take care of himself. he didn't get into a lot of fights overseas, so he's making up for it on land. i wouldn't be surprised if he evolved today with how aggressive he is. hopefully he doesn't get too feral in his later stage." she couldn't suppress a laugh at the thought. if he got any worse, he'd start shadow boxing all the time until he had a target to actually swing at. what a silly sight.

"yer right," she conceded. "i shouldn't count me'self out yet. i would like to complete the gym badges here in hoenn sometime, so i should work on my fighting skills." a tinkatuff wandered too close to clobbopus. in his arms' reach, it was easy for him to surprise her with superpower, wailing on her immediately and getting too close for her to swing her hammer around to him. "i'm glad my pokemon have good fighting instinct and don't need strategy training." she wouldn't know where to begin.

"so how often are ye surprising yerself these days? are you secretly a brawler? do you wrestle pokemon? i've heard there are some interesting underground rings in hoenn." she was mostly teasing, but she had heard something about wrestling ursarings. not a fight she'd take, but hell, she'd pay to watch. she tossed a pokeball at the tinkatuff as clobbopus threw her towards mar with a victorious cry.

catching tinkatuff

Mika Nakayama

☉

she stumbled across an ampharos which growled at the mareep surrounding it, clearly displeased. she paused to watch for a moment, intrigued. he pushed a mareep away, desiring space. she didn't need machismo in her pokemon, but something about him was amusing. perhaps clobbopus could get him to fall in line if she added him to her team, though she didn't want him to attack the pokemon on fair ground since it would likely paralyze him.

she released skrelp, ordering the seahorse to use smokescreen to obscure all the electric types' vision. then, she released clobbopus and let him bind her bounty, holding him still enough for her to toss a pokeball.

catching ampharos

☉