"You need not apologize. It is a wrong that will be righted, in time."

Whose wrong, and how will it be put right? Her face betrays no answers, only an absolute certainty in her words. It is not a possibility for her, but merely a place that she has yet to reach. The fan snaps shut abruptly, and the pipe returns to her lips. Inhale. Exhale. A ritual in microcosm, as old as humanity itself. Such a simple thing, and yet there isn't a single person in this building who is not in its thrall.

--His next words make her tilt her head. It was the correct choice to come here, it seems. Myth and legend congeal like tar in the lungs of this land, just as the stories say. She wonders if any of them truly understand the deluge of miracles they're witnessing.

"That must've been a great honor, to stand before them. When I was a child, I once thought I caught a glimpse of the Aurora Pokémon, gliding across the surface of the Lake of Rage as if it were solid ground. But, it was just a mirage. An illusion. I fear such a meeting better suits a person like me. Though... if we're talking about fakes and originals, if the quality is of the same caliber then the distinction becomes little more than semantics. If I had trained these girls, they would be Kimono Girls. The Pokémon I saw on that lake might just be an illusion, and yet it moved me. If a imitation exceeds the original, it is no longer an imitation."


She thinks of her first partner Pokémon, before she was a Kimono Girl, before she was much of anything. Her mother took her to New Bark Town specially to receive him, rather than enlist the Gym Leader's help in catching whatever Sentret or Oddish happened to be wandering the outskirts of the city. That little Cyndaquil is gone now, and yet the first Pokémon she met when came here bore a face so similar to his.

--She won't think of them as originals and imitations. Pokémon are just Pokémon. She supposes she makes for a poor terrorist, to be so sentimental. But, a woman of her age is allowed a few indulgences, no?

She listens to his next words carefully, and this time her lips curl upwards, into a smile that's almost coquettish. They're treading in dangerous territory, now.

"My. A more suspicious woman might fear you're testing my loyalty, by speaking so poorly of our illustrious comrades. Hoping to catch me in some treasonous statement, perhaps. No matter. I will speak my mind either way. I find myself lacking in patience for platitudes, nowadays. Pretending a problem doesn't exist will only make it worse, after all."

A pause. She sets her pipe down, still wearing that small smile, and lays her hands flat on the table. Slit my wrists if I speak untruly. It's like something out of a movie.

"The Kanto Rockets are little better than dogs. Houndour without a alpha. they'll happily burn this place down to ash if they're not brought to heel."

The building, the city or the region? She does not elaborate. She thinks only of the shape of that tower, smoldering in the morning rain. It isn't so far from his cigarette, really.

"I doubt I would have been so lucky as to be here had they succeeded in their invasion. More importantly, that myth would have been lost. But, they failed, and it has not yet disappeared. Where you say they 'excised' our myth, I say they helped to make it real. that our deities are just Pokémon is nothing to be disappointed in. Rather, it is providence that a Pokémon could hold that power."

She shrugs a little, and withdraws her hands, as if embarassed by the strength of her own convictions.

"That's my view, at least. I understand if you disagree. After all, I have not stood before them, as you have."

howard slayte

☉

Oh, dear.

The thin line of her lips curls upwards into something approaching a sneer as she studies the younger woman, her own hands claspedw together serenely within the folds of her kimono. She isn't one for overt displays of passion, and this one drips with it, expels her anger through each exhale, each twitch of her muscles. A righteous sort of anger, she would expect. That's entirely reasonable, after all.

--There's no place on this earth for a group like Team Rocket, after all.

She's heard of their brutality, too, of course, and seen it now firsthand with her arrival at Petalburg. And yet, it doesn't bother her, not particularly. That's just how she is, she supposes. If something still has use to her, she can look past its flaws. It's very high-minded, when she puts like that. Very utilitarian.

Call it the wisdom of a life lost, or simple amorality. She doesn't much care, either way. Still, there are practices that must be observed.

"...Very well, then. I'll withhold my name, but I accept your challenge. I was trained in battle at the Ecruteak Theater, and I am carrying six battle-capable Pokemon. I am honored to be your opponent today."

She bows in a way that might be mistaken for reverence, were it not for the way her eyes did not change an inch in the course of introduciton. Always fixated on her foe, as any warrior must. Then, she draws herself up, and her eyes finally narrow, just a little.

--Who is the hunter, and who is the prey? The answer is lost in the silence of the battlefield.


"...Golurk, I choose you."

The Poke Ball is tossed with a cold sort of grace from her sleeve, and a moment later the silence is broken by a shudder that shakes the earth as the giant of stone and shadow falls upon it.

MAISIE MAUDLIN

☉

"It may do. Or it may simply... move on. We cannot know how it perceives life or death, nor can we know the rules and limitations of its blessing. A divine mystery should remain a mystery, no? Perhaps that is against the ethos of Team Rocket, but it is not a mere kimono girl's place to understand why the Rainbow Pokémon heeds the call of the bell-- she need only dance to its song."

Perhaps it's a blessing that only Pokémon are worthy of, she doesn't say. To admit that possibility is to admit the impossibility of her own dream, and that is one line that she will not cross. Everything is within her reach, if only she might find the strength to grasp it.


She would sympathize with that ideal image he conjures behind his eyelids for a moment, of course. Perhaps it's in search of someplace like that again that she's here now. All roads eventually lead to home, even if you think you've forgotten the way. Even if you must build your home anew.

--The conversation turns again, this time to a place she doesn't much like. The eye that isn't hidden by the rainbow's glare hardens, and her lips draw into a tight line.

"...Traditionally, yes. Each part of the Eevee line is as a shard of that refracted light, filtered through stone or sky or smile to find a form that suits the Pokémon best. Some even believe that the Sacred Beasts were of the line, before their rebirth... though I don't personally subscribe to that view."

There are rumors to be investigated and pursued, of beasts that wear a familiar face but take a more atavistic shape. Besides, if once the light of that rainbow shined upon the members of that clade, the rain has long since stopped, and the sun long since set. Now, like any other species, Pokémon of the Eevee line just die.

"...I am no longer in possession of my partner, if that's what you're asking."

howard slayte

☉

It all seems a bit ostentatious to her, really. Sure, she supposes she can see the practical applications of a submarine, if she really puts her mind to it. Or, well, she can see them if she also imagines that there isn't a single half-decent Water-type specialist amongst the League's higher echelons. It can't be too likely, can it? It isn't as if half the region is open sea, or anything.

Bah. It is what it is. There's no point in complaining privately. It's a decision born and made before she was even a part of this organisation. Or, in other words--

--Not her monkeys, not her circus. She shrugs to herself as she keys the open button to the lab door. They can throw away all the money they like, really. It isn't any of her business.

Her first impression of Team Rocket has not been of an incredibly practical organisation. Downright sloppy, if the scenes in Petalberg are anything to go by. But, it also doesn't really matter. So long as they're effective when it matters, she can grit her teeth, pinch her nose and deal with all the idiosyncrasies that come with a particularly overgrown terrorist group like this. What she needs from them is more important than her personal tastes.

She peeks her head into the room, her expression not wavering even a little as her eyes slide over its contents. She isn't interested in most of it. She just needs one thing.


"I hope there's someone at least mildly competent in here. It's a very simple request, really."

Alba Evovae

☉

"...Yes. I lived that life. But, that was a long time ago. I'm nobody of any note anymore."

Her reticence does not match the manner in which she announced herself to Team Rocket. But, that's to be expected. It isn't in her nature to make more of a scene than she needs to. An image is an important thing to maintain, after all.

"Once. Foreign royalty you don't have a hold over anymore isn't incredibly impressive, if we're speaking truthfully. Unless this has been Galar all along, and I accidentally purchased the wrong ticket. That would've be foolish of me."

--And even these words don't match her last. No one of note, and yet she scoffs at royalty. Is it arrogance, or simple apathy? The answer is in the way her foot taps in time to the music, the wooden click of her geta lost to the beat.

Ah, and here's the turn in the conversation. He has her attention, at least. It's for this reason that she's here, after all. Of ghosts and rainbows, at least, she is qualified to speak. Even if she's discarded her past, or tried to, there are some parts of her that can't be so easily excised.

"...Hm. Maybe. Pokémon like that exist on a timescale that us mortal beings can't even imagine. Ancient when we were young... It would be as easy as it blinking, and missing the flickering out of a candle in the moment its eyes were closed. But, still. It seems unlikely to me."

A brief pause. Another drag from the pipe, and her other hand emerges with a fan that she snaps open in a single movement, the paper blooming like a flower in its first and last spring to cover half her face, each section a different colour of the rainbow of which they speak. But, it's curious. Kimono Girls match their accessories to their Pokémon, as is tradition, but this fan of seven shades does not suit her mourning black.

"My reasoning is quite simple, really. You're familiar with the legend, yes? The Rainbow Pokémon gives life. Why should it suffer its ally to die? if it follows a ghost, it is because it has not yet understood that they have passed."

She does not use the word 'fealty', like he does. She knows that such a creature does not serve.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

--And all he receives in response is a derisive snort.

"I can't imagine why the Rainbow Pokemon has declined to show itself to them."



If a fake can truly surpass the original, then there's no point in calling it a fake anymore. There's not any difference between the two. That's why this gaudy display can only be called a fake. Painted harlots and braying cattle, competing to see who can make the louder racket. As if to mitigate her disgust, she brings a well-loved kiseru pipe to her lips, the fine tobacco offering a richer, earthier aroma than anything that can be managed by anything that already comes rolled up in a packet. Once she'd secured her position, getting something better than the cheap crap they had to hand around her had been her first priority.

--It's a filthy habit, but she never claimed to be perfect. Small vices are one of the few things she has left. 

"Can the dancers even battle? I might forgive them for playing to their audience if they could at least hold their own. Half the artistry in it is in the battling, you see." 

She's entirely serious. The battles weaved into each performance might only be for show, but the emotion and the passion, they are entirely real. They are the sparks by which the sacred fires might be ignited once again. A dance without a battle is only vanity, and not worth considering as anything more than autoeroticism. She can't even say she's insulted-- are you insulted when an fish doesn't know how to walk on two legs? It's simply beyond their capabilities.

"I hope you aren't going to ask me to train them properly. You know what they say about horses  and water. Besides, I'd need a year or two just to find the right candidates."


She leans back a little and crosses her arms, her free hand disappearing into the sleeve of her kimono. Inside them, she runs a hand over Eevee's Poke Ball. She won't bring her out in a filthy place like this, but she misses the weight of her all the same.

"I'm curious what it is you do want to ask of me. I wasn't expecting an organisation like Rocket to have much use for someone like me, but, then again, it does seem that you're in dire needs of people who actually know what they're doing." 

She looks down the length of her pipe at him, her eyes empty of anything but idle  curiosity.  What brings a man like that to a point in his life like this?

--though, she supposes he could ask the same of her. Hah. The irony tastes of bitter almonds.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

--How could someone so small be such a problem?

The woman sits cross-legged in the entranceway, eyes closed as if lost in some distant dream. Perhaps it's something like the inferno the hound saw. Perhaps it's something different, or something worse. That's okay. It's only natural for dogs to fear fire. It's the one foe a loyal beast cannot protect his master from-- it can only cringe away from the heat, or crumble to ash alongside them. 

There's a plate of mochi and a cup of cooling tea in front of her, and a cigarette in her hand. Strawberry, mango and blueberry. They do come up with some curious things out here in Hoenn, don't they? They're bland and plasticky, like most mochi that isn't made by hand, but they still remind her of home, just a little, and nostalgia is a easy foe to let past your guard.

--more immediately relevant to anyone looking to challenge her are the Pokémon. A Dragonair curls around her body like poison ivy, choking out all else that might think to touch her, slick scales still shimmering with the remnants of draconic energy freshly channeled. She thinks of when she first met him. She sat just like this, in the the somber shrine nestled in the depths of that dismal cave, and spoke with the elders long into the night. How did they judge her? It doesn't matter to her. All that matters is that Dragonair accepted her. She has no need of anything else.

A Typhlosion of unusual character stands beside her, the flames escaping her back a sickly shade of purple, as if polluted by the ephemeral animus that gives shape to ghost Pokémon. The scorchmarks and patches of necrotized matter that surround the entrance suggest that her affliction does not particular impede her battling capabilities.

And finally, a Eevee, sleeping peacefully atop her knees, her trainer's free hand idly stroking through the creature's fur. She dreams of gentler things, of blue skies and happy memories. She knows nothing of fire, and for that Yotsukura Yotsugami is quietly thankful.

--Oh? A dog is barking.

"Hm. I don't think you've the right to call me that, whelp. Are you anyone of any note, or must I send a few more dead-enders packing?"

Her voice is soft and measured but clear, like the ringing of some distant bell. Whatever he recognizes in her is not something she recognizes in him.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

This will do, she supposes. It's been a long time since she's had to make these considerations, but she does find some degree of satisfaction. If battle is a dance, your team is your troupe. She can only really call herself a subpar performer, but she's always thought she's had an eye for talent. 


"--Alright, then. Dragonair, Thunder Wave."

Her second Pokémon erupts from his ball already crackling with electricity, the wave of energy coruscating across the cephalopod Pokémon's slick form like a great earthquake, sending spasms through the creature's muscles with each attempt to move. Once it's toppled to the floor, twitching at random, she takes a moment to breathe in before standing up, a empty Poké Ball slipping from the sleeve of her kimono into her hand. 

"Thank you for this opportunity. I won't waste you." 


She turns to face the creature and inclines her head a little in respect before tossing out the Ball, her still features bathed in crimson for a moment before the now-filled sphere falls to the ground with a thunk.

Shake. Shake. Her expression does not change.

--She thinks she did miss this. Just a little.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

Hm. She supposes she should see about securing a new Pokédex if she's going to take battling seriously again. She isn't familiar with this particular species, but it doesn't take more than a glance at the animated armor stalking towards her that it shares entirely too many qualities with one of the few Pokémon already at her side. Speaking of which...


--She gently picks up the first ball and taps the button with a single delicate finger, unwilling to indulge in the pointless motions of standing and throwing, not when she's sitting vigil. That would just be tasteless, wouldn't it?

"Typhlosion, please use Shadow Ball."

The order is simple and to the point, and the shadowflame-wreathed beast that emerges from the ball in a flash of red light is quick to oblige, its roar echoing throughout the solemn halls as the purplish fire erupting from its mane congeals into a rapidly-expanding orb of pitch-black energy to be hurled in the other Pokémon's direction, sending it running for cover with a single attack. Good. If she's going to be interrupted, it better be by something worth the trouble of battling.

"Return."

Another burst of red, and the dolmen is quiet once more. The waiting recommences.

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉

That Pokémon will eventually fade and pass away is perhaps the hardest truth for a child to accept. How long had it taken her, all those years ago? How long had it been since she'd really come to understand what that meant?

The answer eludes her, and she sighs softly. Her knees ache a little, the silk of her kimono offering only a thin barrier between her skin and the cold tiles, any artistry that might have once graced their pale faces long since worn away by the endless shuffle of people and Pokémon through this place, a neverending funeral procession marching on loop through days and months and years, the faces always changing but the feelings never once straying from the path laid out before them. 

--A bottomless pit, a bottomless despair. When Pokémon fade into the past, humans lose sight of the future.

She couldn't come to this region without doing this, of course. To neglect something as small as this offering wouldn't sit right with her-- a meaningless token to the person she was, to the world that was hers. So small it might simply be forgotten when she closes her eyes, like exhale from the lungs. Still. Even if it's become nothing more than a meaningless gesture, her hands still ache to make the movements all the same.

She lights the last stick of incense and leans back, closing her eyes and inhaling just a little, tasting the gentle fragrance of sandalwood on the tip of her tongue. Eevee stretches comfortably across her thighs, halfway to sleep already-- if she feels the weight of this place upon her like her trainer does, she doesn't show it. Her remaining two Poké Balls are laid out on a small cloth in front of her. Waiting. If she has need of them, she has need of them. She would like something to remember this gesture by, beyond her imperfect memories and the scent still lingering in her sinuses.

She does not speak. She murmurs whatever benedictions she might have to offer in her mind, and waits. That's a kind of peace too, isn't it?

Yotsukura Yotsugami

☉