Ranger HQ Ranger Union HQ

[Phoenixsong]

Leaf didn't ask whether Leona was sure she was up to it. Woulda been patronizing. Of course she'd want to go, even if it might be hard for her. Of course she'd want to see this through. (Who wouldn't?) And she had been doing tons better, lately. She still looked quiet, pensive, but not broken.

"It's possible this guy's trying to actually manipulate Cipher somehow," she added. "So probably we'll all have to deal with him one way or another. He's supposed to have really good control over shadows?" She didn't really even know what that meant, but given all the nonsense he'd been credited with so far it might as well've meant 'whatever he wants I guess'. "But Powehi's gonna try and help us hold that off. So it shouldn't be a problem to push through it." Hopefully.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Seth dramatically cracked his neck and knuckles. "You know it. Short of getting put through a wormhole back to my planet, I'll be there to put my boot up that guy's ass."

He glanced at his un-shoed hindpaw.

"Figure of speech. You know what I mean."

Leona snorted – it was so strange to hear her laugh at all, that it might take a second to register that she apparently found her counterpart pretty funny.

"Same here," she added. "That 'Powehi' didn't deputize me the way he did Seth, but... Whatever. I can't see myself falling under Alexander's sway – I'd tap out first if he got his claws in my head."

Tap out? Was that a casual statement of intent to... off herself? Maybe her ragged smirk meant she was only joking... Evidently the other Lycanroc had as dark a headspace as Seth did.

 

[Phoenixsong]

"Won't come to that, anyway," Leaf said, leaning on "won't" a little harder than she'd intended. "There's still more intel we can get, and we'll have the numbers to pull him in twenty directions at once." She glanced around, caught sight of a few Rangers bustling about their preparations. "Big bad Sock-Puppets-For-Hands won't know what hit 'im. Him or any of his pawns." She grinned herself, maybe a little nervous, but genuine.

Seth had told them what he knew about most of Cipher's admins ages ago, and who knew what any of them would be like if Alexander was actually pulling their strings, but any advantage they could get was a good one. "You beat Cipher before," she asked Leona. "Maybe they're not exactly the same as Seth's guys, but even if they're close, knowing what worked before to take them out would be a big deal." (And, bonus, also an opportunity to trash-talk 'em.)

 

[Jackie Cat]

"Heh... I sure did."

Leona shifted to look sidelong at Leaf, leaning casually on one forelimb. Since her recovery from Shadowfication, she wasn't just less jittery, she was practically mellow. Confident, relaxed, a little cocky. Just less performatively showy than Seth.

"Mind you, we're pretty sure that's down to luck, but mostly... because I had Rui on my side. She had the power to identify Shadow pokémon, for one. Plus she filled me in about Cipher, kept me on-task and motivated, took me to Agate and got me an in with her old man – who looked after my world's Celebi Relic – all things that made a difference. Without her, I'd have been like Seth..."

She shot him a sympathetic glance, though not a pitying one. He shrugged back.

"Wasted a shit-ton of time fuckin' around, battling a bunch of stupid dipshits in Pyrite and huffing my own farts about how great I was at battling. Meanwhile, Cipher had the run of the region, and all their plans went ahead without so much as a spanner in the works."

Leona clicked her tongue. "Yeaaahhh... That's a real bitch of a situation," she said, with feeling. Then, to the Wayfarers, "You guys are organised, motivated, informed, and working as a big fuckin' team. You want my opinion on Cipher? I think you'll curbstomp those assholes."

Seth snorted, and his muzzle curved into a smirk. He nodded his agreement, and winked encouragingly at Archie.

 

[Weazel]

Archie nodded along with Leaf’s forceful denial. None of them would be dying, best not to even speak such a possibility into the world. There were dozens of them and just one of Alexander, it didn’t matter how many flunkies he summoned, all they had to do was down the Hydreigon.

“Well, if the heroes of Orre think we can handle it, then there’s no way we can lose,” the Dewott nodded, responding to Seth’s wink with a grin of his own. “Still, there’s no such thing as being too prepared, so anything you can think of about the remaining Admins, Leona, that you think might be worth knowing in advance would be really helpful.”

 

[Phoenixsong]

"Good to know it ain't even a question," Leaf said, still grinning. That was more like it. "But c'mon, you gotta have stories, right? Why just curbstomp when you can humiliate?" She stomped a forehoof into the dirt and ground it in for emphasis. Honestly, even if there wasn't some top-secret strat for dealing with 'em, it'd probably be good for keeping spirits up. Or just plain fun to hear.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Leona smiled faintly. As the wind tousled her hair, it seemed for a moment as if there ought to be someone at her side...

Rui. I miss you.

"Heh... I suppose I can shoot the breeze a while longer," she relented. "There's this one thing that comes to mind, I guess – the shadow boss of Cipher had a pair of sons. Adults, sure, but really just boys, for all that they tried to seem super-serious all the damn time..."

Seth, despite himself, leaned in a little. Curious, despite a twitch in his cheek that hinted at discomfort. Whatever Leona was gonna talk about, it wouldn't have gone so well for him – this would probably feel like a lesson in what he'd missed out on, like anything from Leona's timeline.

Leona kept talking, about how she'd come out of retirement to battle Cipher again, as if she'd let some kid take responsibility for that, and beaten each of Ardos and Eldes in turn.

She spoke of how Cipher was just a uniform its members wore, to disguise that none of them cared about anything but getting one over everyone else, and none of them agreed on how to do it, except to have nothing they wouldn't do to get power.

She explained how every now and again, Cipher agents would let slip that they didn't want this. That they felt some kind of regret, that they'd made a mistake in letting things go so far...

"...and he gets this look in his eye, like he's just woken up from a nightmare, he suddenly sees everything like it really is, and he's like, 'Wait, you're gonna blow this place up with everyone in it while you make a run for it? What the fuck is wrong with you!' – though I guess he probably sounded fancier about it, eheh..."

As Leona told her story, Seth listened to her. Thinking.

Behind the wolf's eyes, in his mind, something seemed to click into place...

<><><><><>​

 

[Shiny Phantump]

It had occurred to Gladion that he should probably talk to Leona a while ago, but he’d been putting it off of a while. He had a hunch it was gonna be an awkward conversation and it was so easy to put off in favour of other, more pressing things.

Now, Matthias was asking them to try to “find Betel” in the Coven. Even though he had no fucking clue what that would entail, it would definitely be of interest to Leona, someone who was there should tell her. Sure, he could ask someone to pass the message on for them, like Leaf or… just Leaf actually, asking Archie would just tip him off that Gladion hadn’t had the conversation with Leona that he’d said he would.

But he’d put off properly meeting Leona for long enough. So finally, he made his way down to the Ranger HQ. The place was… a lot to take in, but he managed to find Leona in there.

“Hey, Leona, you got a minute? Got a development you might wanna hear about.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Leona pulled away from her task – tinkering with some kind of water pump, by the look of it – and turned her attention to Gladion.

"Yeah, I got a minute," she replied, in a flat affect. "Mm. Hi, Gladion."

That was all. It wasn't like despair was dripping from her mouth or anything, she just sounded... subdued. At least there was no 'but it better be good, dipshit' like one might have heard from Seth.

She set down her wrench in a toolbag leant up against the wall, and sat on her haunches, vaguely expectant.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"Okay, so, uhh..." He'd loosely pictured a few ways this conversation might go on his way over, but now that he had to prune it down to one he was finding it hard to articulate exactly what he needed to communicate. He took a moment to steel his composure.

"Alright, plan hasn't solidified yet 'cause this is recent news, but the Coven's soggy little golden boy's tipped us off that he's going to be out running errands for a while. Doing his whole double agent schtick, that's a whole story, point being: We've got an opening to go in and try to... find Betel. Whatever we find there, you seem to have been summoned in more or less the same way as us. Which means..."

He skipped a beat as he tried to figure out what the right implication was. "Well, I don't know what it means for you, not yet. But it's definitely not gonna mean nothing. So, if you wanna get in on that whole operation, door's open. Don't think there are any other Wayfarers who're gonna say they have even more of a bone to pick with that chunk of the Coven's 'natural philosophers' than you."

It also felt like it would be a good idea to have her there in case there was a shot at going home dependent on being there in-person with the stuff used to summon her, but that felt like such a long shot that it would be cruel to even raise that thought aloud. There was a chance this would be connected to her way home in some capacity, and she didn't need him to spell that out for her.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Leona listened attentively, and frowned. Thoughts tumbled behind her eyes. Gladion was talking about a way home – or at least a chance to get even with whoever ordered her summoning.

"I'm in," she said, after a moment's consideration.

Reading Gladion's expression, she forced a smirk. "Surprised you didn't need to sell me harder on this? Don't be. I need something to do, or I get restless, and all this Voice of the Desert World-Spirit junk isn't exactly a thrilling adventure so far." By way of explanation, she added, "It's nothing, really. Been trying to track down whatever summons humans normally and ask 'em for a ticket home. It's going... so-so. I could use a break, especially if it means I get to break things. So you can count me in for your ass-kicking field trip."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

"If anything, I didn't want to oversell you on this 'till I know what the plan is," Gladion half-mumbled and half-said.

Her explanation got a smirk out of him. Enough for him to recover his composure. "I get that, for sure. I sit still too long and start to go stir crazy. When there's something to do, at least. Always seems to be something to do here. Some goal we gotta progress towards."

He didn’t feel it as strongly as he used to, now that he had close friends. But he did still know the feeling of having to keep moving, that if he sat still too long then the homesickness would creep back in. Something about Leona and her quest to get home to her team made the feeling creep back again. “And I guess getting home to your partners is one of those nebulous goals you can sink a seemingly endless amount of energy into, if you don’t know what to do yet.” (Was that too much? That was too much. He should hedge it.) “Or maybe that’s just me?”

 

[Jackie Cat]

Leona snorted. "You too, huh? I can smell 'trainer' all over you, y'know. Hell, it's in the eyes."

Her little maintenance project forgotten, the wolf stood to walk towards the centre of the little plaza, where sun would fall on her fur. She nodded, almost to herself.

"Yeah. I know I've not got some grand purpose here. So I guess I'll just keep throwing myself at anything that looks like a way home, even if I just end up kicking about doing odd jobs to earn my keep half the time. I've been picking at a few leads in Auranosa like they're something stuck in my teeth, but as you might expect from the comparison, I've not had a lotta luck. Damn place is like a haystack made of dungeons."

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Gladion pretty transparently perked up with pride at her remark about his trainer-ness, even if he didn’t interrupt her to comment. The purposelessness bit brought his mood back down to earth.

“Tough situation. I’ll let you know if I find any toothpicks,” Gladion offered, resisting the urge to ruin his complete deadpan with a smirk.

(It didn’t feel great to be unable to help, but even if she probably didn’t expect anything of him the joke was still better than an earnestly admitting there was nothing he could do. Wasn’t like the Caldera was likely to tell him why Auriga herself was as MIA as her latest hero.)

“Wonder if you’re gonna be able to remember this, when you go back. Would probably be quite something to have a strong trainer with experience on both parts of the field. Definitely the part of this I’ve enjoyed most.” That might not actually be true when sized up against the experience of having friends who could actually talk, but that admission was too pathetic-sounding to make to himself, much less to someone else.

“Y’know, there’s this Alolan adage about trainers coming to resemble their partners.” He laughed faintly at his own joke before even finishing it. “Didn’t figure it was gonna be so prophetic before I grabbed Hazel— Err, my world’s version of my first partner. Feels like the universe’s got a got a sense of humour about things sometimes.”

Again, the joke itself didn’t matter. He’d killed the pacing of the delivery by elaborating on Hazel. But it was worth allowing himself the ‘slip’ of mentioning a name she wouldn’t recognize because the ‘correction’ was the only way he could think of to mention what he thought might interest her. There was no room to wonder if doing that on purpose counted as speaking manipulatively, not unless he wanted to clam up with guilt. This was how he could communicate. He’d have to live with it for now, and see if Leona wanted to meet him where he was at, or if she wanted nothing to do with it. He wouldn’t blame her, if it was the latter.