Frontier Town Nocwell's General Goods

[Cresselia92]

…Oh. So Jade wasn’t part of some epic highly specialized squad that flew in black helicopters and tracked down criminals with their hyper-trained Pokémon. No, Jade’s ‘job’ had hit much, much closer to home than Lyra expected.

“…Team Rocket, huh,” she half-whispered, her ears curling against her skull and her grin reducing to a sad smile.

Right. Jade was from Kanto, and that was the region where Team Rocket started gaining power. And look and behold, the Kanto of Jade’ and Virga’s world was dealing with the same R-wearing power-hungry scourge, as if multiple Rockets across the multiverse had decided to follow a similar script.

“Then your situation is kinda close to mine. Y’know, the whole ‘regular kids fighting back against Rockets’ stuff? Yeah, huh, been there done that. Not an… easy issue.” Lyra snorted and shook her head, the smile leaving her eyes. “Crazy to think it all began with a bunch of friends full of hopes and dreams, eager to start their journey as novice Trainers.”

Lyra pulled an apple slice, slightly spiked on top, resembling a rebellious tuft. “A brave boy who wanted to be like the zeroes-to-heroes from those action-packed, adrenaline-filled movies. Someone who aimed to be the best Trainer in the entire world — even better and stronger than the champion of champions, Red.”

She pulled another slice, this one with two strands of apple peels twirled like upward ponytails. “A studious girl who wanted to bring to justice the redheaded thief who had stolen a Totodile from her father’s lab, and whose quest turned into taking down the very crime syndicate that wanted to conquer Johto after it lost most of its power in Kanto.”

Finally, she pointed at herself with those same slices, her gaze lowering. “And then, there’s me. Someone who only wanted to have fun adventures with her childhood friends, and who became their emotional support whenever they took a step too far. Be it nearly drowning in a storm caused by a rampaging red Gyarados, almost getting stranded in the past during a time trip… or barely surviving a frenzied swarm of Unown after teaming up with the Northern Wind.”

Lyra let out a humorless chuckle. “It was meant to be our journey of self-discovery. A rite of passage to learn more about the world.” She sighed deeply, almost dramatically, then shrugged and flashed a bashful smile at Jade and Virga. “Heh! Guess we ended up learning far more about the world than we expected to learn! But hey,” her smile regained its original cheer, “at least we won.”

 

[Chibi Pika]

Virga observed the display with a perplexed look. "You carry these effigies of your allies everywhere you go?"

Jade gave the Rookidee a look. Virga, please. Buts she had to admit, she found it a bit odd herself. Wouldn't the slices dry out by the end of the day and have to get remade? Maybe it was a morning routine of sorts...

Jade rubbed her arm. "Honestly, what you're describing kinda reminds me a pit of some of my teammates. Like, the ones who had high hopes about being heroes and stuff." In her case, it was different. She'd never been under the impression that The Rebellion was going to be a fun adventure. Getting kidnapped right off the bat sort of put a damper on that.

There was one other thing that'd jumped out at her, though.

"When you say 'you won,' you mean, like... you beat the Rockets?"

 

[Cresselia92]

Virga’s mystified gaze made Lyra respond with an equally mystified blink, but the surprise quickly melted into an amused fit of giggles.

“Oh my, no! I really love my friends but not to that extent!” she explained, stifling her giggles with a paw to her mouth, and eyed her sachet. “Y’see, I was walking around, looking at my apple pieces, then I remembered watching someone cutting some cuuute rabbit-shaped apple pieces, then I unsheathed my claws and I thought ‘oh wait lemme try something’, and ta-daaah!!”

Lyra lowered her sachet. From it poked out the vague apple-textured silhouettes of a Marill, a Meganium, a Venomoth and a Pichu with a bizzarre tuft on its ear. Definitely amateurish and imprecise, but the passion was imprinted into them… and yet, the novelty status seemed to have fizzled out as Lyra simply chomped off the heads of the two human-shaped figures (with a good chance that the real humans would be affected by a mysterious migraine for a few days at best).

"When you say 'you won,' you mean, like... you beat the Rockets?"

Lyra quirked a brow, her munching reduced to light nibbling.

“Well, of course! That’s what we had to do as the local good guys, no? Making sure that the bad guys wouldn’t win and conquer Johto with their nefarious plans and whatnot!” she replied nonchalantly, but the wide-eyed cheery energy was replaced by a thin-eyed seriousness. “But don’t get me wrong! It was no walk in the National Park! I mean, we three wouldn’t have been able to take down an entire organization by ourselves — of course not! Ethan is really strong, yeah, and Kris even participated to the Battle Tower, but like! The Admins alone were so powerful and dangerous and scary, and the grunts might’ve been weaker but they were so many! Y’know the saying ‘there’s strength in number”? Yeah, huh, it was like that.”

Once the human slices were gone, Lyra ran a paw under her hat to reach and scratch the back of her head, her gaze wandering as she collected her thoughts. “It took, huuuh… something like three whole years to get rid of ‘em? And that was with the constant support of folks like the Gym Leaders, some ex-members of the Elite Four, a lot of legendary blessings, and that guy… Looker, I think? Silver knowing a lot about Team Rocket because of his, erm, turbulent past and sharing intel helped a lot, too. I don’t think we would’ve gone much far without his help…”

‘Or still be alive and well, despite what those Ethan and Kris simps and Silver naysayers claim…’ she silently added, a shiver running down her spine and her nose twitching erratically. Such an unfun scenario to ponder and contemplate!