The distortion had appeared without warning. Ameena hadn't been walking the city streets with a psychic by her time and, lacking the prowess and convenience of a pokemon knowing teleport, she was swallowed without recourse. [break][break]

Inside the portal, she saw a snowy, barren field. And a gigantic, two-story tall Avalugg. [break][break]

She had no time to look around at her surroundings, her teeth already threatening to chatter at the sudden drop in temperature with the snowflake-laden winds. Her closest pokeball launches from her belt with a flick, and Xurkitree takes form before her. Xurkitree raised its top appendages and created an electric terrain over the icy field. [break][break]

Avalugg responded by exacerbating the biting winds, creating a blizzard that threatened to freeze her out if she didn't stall the pokemon and find her way back through the distortion.

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – SURVIVING SPACE-TIME [we in a space portal and the avalugg is using blizzard][break][break]

The warehouse was the perfect place to practice estimating electrical needs and producing it. Many Rockets were tasked with practicing this battery fulfillment. She had the perfect pokemon, Xurkitree, but he kept failing to hold back. He had exploded several batteries which were sitting in a sad corner. There were hundreds left to practice on, but she was quickly losing patience. "At this rate, I will need a weaker pokemon." Downgrading for the war effort was going to be bad in many ways.

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – HAYWIRE GENERATOR (COC)[break][break]

The sweet air of Verdanturf was relaxing; Ameena preferred this site to a day of indulgence at an indoor spa in Mauville or even a day at the Slateport beach. The grassy plains, sea of flowers, and soft atmosphere made for an ideal vacation away from her work. One day here or there was good for the mind, and frankly, the space outside of her laboratory often gave her room to ponder solutions to issues she couldn't work through in the confined space. [break][break]

Her moment of tranquility was interrupted by the sharp rise in buzzing noises; the ambient swarm of bees in the flower field ahead of her was growing and gaining momentum with erratic movement. What had upset them?

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – BEES![break][break]

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"I expect good results in exchange for this," she said behind him, presenting the drink. Nothing came close to a simple grey tea, so she rarely experimented with anything so intentionally indulgent. "Usually, people default to stealing money with a card game." Admittedly, she knew none. Early in her military career, she was kept artificially busy to stay isolated from her unit when possible. Later, when no one with authority cared to waste time on such an effort, she had learned to keep her distance for her own safety. [break][break]

Still, the game he had set up was more successful than she could have imagined. And then a child approached. Was he willing to, as the expression went, take candy from a baby?

TAGS – Yuan Wright [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

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"I have no issue with heights." She eyed the Gardevoir who looked suspicious at the declaration. "I feel fine up here." She looked down, pointedly, from her position on the mountain to prove her point. She did, indeed, not feel her stomach flip. But ever since her nervousness underground, Gardevoir was quick to accuse her of various phobias. And, for the record, being underground was not scary. If she preferred the fresh, open air, who could blame her?

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – water/flying[break][break]

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Was she a glutton for punishment? She kept finding herself with too many interesting subjects of study, inevitably spreading herself too thin between them: dreams, alternate realities, eternatus, genesect, and now him. Instead of answering the first question, she responds to the second. "I am merely recycling. I love the environment."[break][break]

She makes no effort to veil the facetiousness of the answer. Gardevoir puts another beam by the melted-down cubes, but Delphox is still paused from her task, watching the officer with interest. [break][break]

But Ameena is a scientist first, Rocket second. Her curiosity cannot be tampered by a sense of self-preservation for long. She has to know how far his indulgence in her antics will go. If his lack of immediate force is a desire for information, playing with his food, or something else entirely. She extends a hand to him, smile like a Sharpedo, and offers, "Ameena Abadi. A pleasure."

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – stealing steel[break][break]

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His attitude is not viable long-term. She understands having different areas of strength - hell, hers were firmly in a laboratory by her own admission - but defense was important for survival if nothing else. Did he have no survival instinct? [break][break]

A real part of her wants to attack him directly to see if that instinct hums in his blood, but she sheathes it for now. Scaring away or injuring Rockets would not help the collective cause when he could be shaped into something well-rounded. And, she admits begrudgingly to herself, she's charmed by Mr. Rime's antics in falling over dramatically. But he and Yuan both needed to be ready for war. [break][break]

"We will have to take this up again another time," she concedes. "If you are going to leave the fighting to your tools," she says sharply, "they had better be damn good ones." Mr. Rime's behavior is amusing, but it will not intimidate the enemy and dissuade them from a fight. "Needing to be defended by others in the coming war means you must be indispensable to be worth the added resource and effort; from what I see, you are not. Work on that, or the combat, but work on improving your value."[break][break]

She returns Sir Fetch'd to his ball. To soften her criticism, she adds, "I am not interested in burying more colleagues."

TAGS – Yuan Wright [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

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Her childhood blanket was a patchwork, something tattered with unintentionally visible stitches, unfashionably heavy, filled with patches seemingly unintentionally. It looked like a collection of excess fabric from other projects. Many were cheap. It was not suitable for anyone in the Abadi clan. It did not complement their family crest nor the long series of badges and photographed ceremonies that filled every Abadi household. [break][break]

Ameena always felt the need to apologize when she held it. Her mom would keep it in Ameena's bedroom, folded up and hidden at the bottom of her toy chest in a room kept military-clean. Her father would never be caught rustling through toys, would never debase himself by looking for what he considered to be scraps, to be lesser, utter rubbish. Ameena had to be careful when she took it out, had to be sure her father wouldn't see it. She wanted its comfort. She feared the punishment of such weakness. It smelled entirely of her mother in a house that was fiercely sterile, abusively scrubbed of fingerprints and human touch until it was indistinguishable from any other wall or door or window or table. [break][break]

... [break][break]

Espathra, her first partner - a Flittle, she used to be - lurches in the way of the bullet, her psychic senses giving her enough forewarning to know the trajectory but her wounds forbidding any faster or stronger action than moving in front of it. [break][break]

Blood is hot. There is nothing surgical about any of it. Ameena can never get used to its heat, the immediate reminder that it has come from a working body, even if the body is wrung out before the blood finishes landing. Espathra, like a fabric napkin, folds and crumples before her, falling at her feet. The blood covers her face like war paint befitting an army she isn't fighting for. [break][break]

Ameena falls to her side, already knowing from the lack of mental presence from the Espathra that she is gone, utterly gone. She is limp. She is deflated. She is wrapped around Ameena's hands as the soldier the daughter the trainer the saved, undeserving but saved holds her cautiously. Ameena shakes her, lightly, to confirm the bird draped over her bruised hands is treacherously soft. The weight is, bizarrely, comforting. Ameena wishes she was underneath her, wishes she was buried beneath - buried with - her partner, wishes she didn't have to hide this. She feels the need to apologize.[break][break]

d r e a m – G 16[break][break][break]

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Gwen couldn't have handed Ameena a better opportunity. Gwendolyn had thrived in such a short period of time because she was finally in the right opportunity for growth. No longer the wasting-away teenager, Gwen was a capable Ranger: intelligent, curious, brave. Imagine, then, what Gwendolyn could do if she wasn't held back by ethics. [break][break]

Ameena needed to take Gwen under her wing. Was it too soon? Perhaps, a near death experience in the wilds could cinch it. Oh, had the Ranger asked a question? "My first was a Flittle. Given to me as a joke, by my superior officer, as instructed by my father. I had been forbidden to have pokemon as, in my family, we do not receive any until we enlist. My father had never expected me to do so." He had punished for daring to seize power and freedom for herself. Simultaneously, he had told her she had to make up for the crime of being a woman, of being the sole heir to the Abadi name, by being better than everyone else. [break][break]

An unwinnable game for an unobtainable prize. [break][break]

"Espathra, she became, quickly in my training." Ameena turned from Gwen, thoughtful. "She gave her life for mine. I could not afford the risk of my father taking that as a representation of my skill. Every superior office I ever had had always reported back to him directly despite the vast distances in the chain of command. I lived in a Panopticon until I left Galar. I had poached an Espathra from some villager, to make up for my deceased one. The only other pokemon I had had was Munna.[break][break]

With my stolen Espathra in hand, I had Munna manipulate its mind to forget its owner, its prior life. Munna filled it with memories she had of me with my previous Espathra to make it act the same. Instead, we had corrupted its mind." Softer, now, she continued. "Psychic moves have great impact on the psyche. My Espathra lives with a fragmented mind. She is bloodthirsty beyond belief, aggressive and sadistic, but she was not born that way." [break][break]

Something twisted in her chest. She hadn't thought of her first pokemon in a long, long time. The confession had come unbidden - Ameena was not a habitual liar - and here, now, she sat in the heavy silence following the revelation, unsure if this was going to create too vast a distance between them to be bridged by their experiences. The opportunity to forge Gwendolyn into a fine Rocket, a finer scientist, could have slipped through her fingers just now.

TAGS – Gwendolyn Conway [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

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Ah, her favorite cowboy. [break][break]

His detective work is instant, bringing a smile to her hidden face. She doesn't need a disguise anymore. She pulls the helmet off, looking at him with open amusement. "Doctor," she identifies herself. [break][break]

Delphox stops her inferno on the steel and comes closer, though Ameena does not give her any instruction to attack. She would much prefer a conversation to a battle, though Delphox doesn't hide her use of future sight to determine when he will attack. [break][break]

Rehash their dance, hm? "Only if you are a glutton for punishment." She takes a step closer, sensing the opportunity for diplomacy. But all business and no play made for a dull scientist. It is her responsibility, really, to the entire monolith of science, to do her due diligence and experiment with Deputy James. So, with a suggestive tone, she presses him. "Are you?"

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – stealing steel[break][break]

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He's taking to battling like a Stakataka to flight. [break][break]

"Okay," she says again, rubbing at her forehead unsubtly. Sir Fetch'd rolls out of the way of the fairy attack. It's not bad, but it's not quite the easy sword combat she had planned. "What I mean is, you need to take charge of the battle. Put it on your terms. Stop forcing yourself to be reactive and be proactive instead." [break][break]

Not that Sir Fetch'd was going to just sit and take it. The feisty pokemon charges again with the blade pointed straight at Mr. Rime. "And maybe with some more specific direction," she recommends as a side note.

TAGS – Yuan Wright [break]

NOTES – [break][break]

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