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.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Regardless of Gladion's self-conscious overthinking, his jokes... landed. Leona snerked and chuckled in turn, apparently responding well to his sense of humour. (Big success, Gladion – you have achieved the unethical objective of manipulating someone into being in a better mood! Well done.)

"Mm, yeah, I getcha," she said, tipping her head as she mulled over the more serious part of what he'd said. "You're the, uh, ARK guy, right? I could tell you have a thing about Sage, I take it Hazel's another one of 'em. You know I caught Shadow 'mon, right? Stole 'em straight off of trainers. Maybe some'd get real introspective about that, but it never really bothered me. Obviously taking 'mon outta the hands of complete scumbags is the right play, why overthink it?"

For all that her rhetorical question might seem targeted to Gladion, it really did sound like a loose aside from Leona, nothing more.

She clicked her tongue. "But since being here... I dunno. It's not as if my 'mon are all raring to wear suits and ties and apply for a credit card or whatever the fuck – they're more like the wild 'mon around here – but it's sure gonna be weird if I remember all this back home. Like, it's never gonna sit right with me again calling a 'mon 'it', for instance. And I'm probably gonna end up second-guessing my judgement more often about discipline and training. And I just—"

Her face froze up for a second as she considered withholding the third item in her list. Then she pulled a face that said fuck it, and committed to the bit.

"—I just hope I don't end up thinkin' girl pokémon are pretty the way that's crossed my mind now and then in Forlas. Wouldn't be a fun thing to have to explain to my girlfriend. Fuckssake."

She pulled a face. Something might tell Gladion that Leona couldn't keep a secret from Rui to save her life.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Gladion visibly relaxed as Leona took well to talking to him. Plus, she took the conversation in a different direction than he was expecting, so it wasn’t really possible to feel like he was just fishing for information.

The conversation left him with a sense of deja vu. Like he’d had it before. He prepared to offer up the same bits of information about having stolen Hazel, and his world’s species being wild, too. The credit card bit got an earnest laugh out of him, at least. Leona seemed to be the funniest Lycas, or at least they both just had the same dry sense of humour.

But she didn’t stop there. She kept going and this time she really took the conversation somewhere he hadn’t been expecting. Caught completely unbraced for it, a rasping avian sound escaped him: he was laughing harder than the human-like “light exhale through the nose” laugh he usually allowed himself.

“Yeah, that’s fair, just—” (Nope, still laughing.)

“That would suuuuck. But surely, that’s got to be a physical brain chemistry thing? Or else… Damn, maybe it’s not so bad that I’ll lose my memories after all.”

Without really thinking about it, Gladion had stopped thinking about what reactions or information he was trying to get and slipped into the modality of a normal conversation. “Hazel’s really intelligent for a species of my world, but if anything that makes it feel less like stealing, y’know? They used to be pretty careful not to let the Nulls hurt them if they had to get close. Now I think she’d try to hurt anyone who tried to separate us. Follows that she likes me, and she’s the only one whose opinion on the subject matters to me. If law enforcement thinks I should value their opinion more highly, the cops are welcome to go chase around the old name and identity I burned and tell them.”

 

[Jackie Cat]

Leona made a gesture somewhat like an awkward shrug. 'Brain chemistry'? Maybe, but who knew? Yikes!

“She’s the only one whose opinion on the subject matters to me."

The Lycanroc pulled a begrudging grin of approval.

"Yeah, that's fair 'nuff, kid. It's not like I'd let cops tell me what to do with the Shadow 'mon I snatched – and purifying them kinda proves I know what I'm doing, I guess. If I were a shitty trainer, I just, uh. Wouldn't have been able to do that."

"—the old name and identity I burned and tell them.”

She frowned, her lips twitching as she fought her way around something harder to say.

"Maybe it's not that I'm doing anything wrong now, and more... I've still got some feelings to work out about who I used to be. I guess you lot already know who Seth was, it's not a stretch for you to work out that I was that guy, too. When I first caught Shadow 'mon, I wasn't doing it 'cause I was the only one who could help 'em, hell, I didn't even know I could. I stole 'em 'cause I wanted a strong enough team to curbstomp any Cipher goon who got in my way. It's different now, but... that'll always be how I started out."

Without Shadow energy clawing at her heart, Leona didn't seem to have too much trouble saying all this, but her voice was blunt, low, and thick with chagrin. Saying this stuff so flatly was her way of beating herself up.

 

[Shiny Phantump]

Silence hung over them for a moment between Leona finishing speaking and Gladion deciding what to say. He saw a raw nerve bared for what felt to be his judgment, and he couldn't afford to come across as dismissive or punitive.

"Well, I can't say I'd feel any differently if I were in your shoes..."

Another beat, spent course-checking, confirming that he was gonna take it this way. He was, but his voice was still laced with caution. Leona was still largely a stranger to him, and his pool of assumptions about her as the third Lycas he'd met were tenuous.

"But I'm not. From where I'm standing, even if you can't change who you were, you still reinvented yourself. Not gonna fault Seth for failing to crack his world's Cipher, but you did. Whatever reason you got your shadows for, you purified them. I've never met That Guy who you were. And you seem pretty alright right now, Leona. Wherever you started out can't change that."

Ideally, he'd leave it there. A moment of raw, unfiltered sincerity. "Plus, if you keep self-flagellating like this and make me keep being earnest, it might kill me. Can't have that." But he'd brought the best he could.

 

[Jackie Cat]

Leona snorted, and cuffed Gladion about the shoulder.

"Pfft, no way you're that easy to kill. I haven't even said anything really embarrassing yet. This shit is practically surface level, I haven't even got into anything all that personal. You sound like a former edgy teen in recovery. We have that in common too, heh."

Dismissive as she was, her energy had brightened up from Gladion's company. In her own way, she was perceptibly grateful. A weight had lifted, if only a little.

Then a slow, dark grin crept onto the Lycanroc's muzzle.

"Hey, speaking of personal shit, when'd you figure out you were queer, anyway?"

Leona's STRONG, CRITICAL personal question struck Gladion!

 

[Shiny Phantump]

A groan escaped Gladion's throat, which he exaggerated into a sarcastically over-the-top one to cover it. This was the second time recently and he'd barely met Leona, it really was that obvious. Though to be fair to himself, he had been trying to signal in that general direction. He'd needed her to know he was trans for it to be fine for him to be curious if she was trans. So, yeah! This played into his hand actually! If he got a good grade in queer, something that was reasonable to want and possible to achieve, then he could just ask Leona Lycas if she was trans and it wouldn’t be fucking weird!

He didn't have lips to smirk with, but the look he shot Leona would carry the sentiment of one just fine. If they were gonna do this, he was gonna raise. He didn't take to losing.

"Oh, we're going there, are we? Alright, fine."

He'd crack his knuckles, if he had could. Couldn't even cross his "arms" without falling forward onto his face, but he could at least hold one foreleg across. Probably looked more like he was holding a mitt of cards to his chest more than crossing one arm, but whatever. He was doing the best he could with his body plan.

"Where do we start? Oh, I've got it: So, apparently most identical twins don't grow up feeling like they're occupying a body that belongs to their sister." (Okay, no, even with the sarcasm that was still too raw. He was gonna have to dial it back.) "Funny how that works out. But I think I figured that shit out earlier than usual because that gave me a lens to figure out and explain what I was thinking with." (Did he have to explain who Wicke was here? Nah, that would be too much talking. She could figure he had someone to explain it to, and the rest didn't really matter.)

"My sis was the sweet, likeable kinda kid that Mother Dearest wanted. The one kid she wanted, so there'd be no conflict over who got to inherit her capitalist nightmare empire. There never really was a contest, though, it was pretty obvious to everyone that Lillie was usable and I was a good-for-nothing firebrand. My dad was alright about it though. Think he probably woulda figured it out, mighta suspected something, but he didn't live long enough."

He paused there, not for effect but to pull himself back from the temptation to stare into speculative reality of what might have happened if his dad hadn't been lost. Probably wouldn't even have really gone down the way he'd like to imagine it would have. After all, his dad was ultimately married to Lusamine. Over here in reality, he had to live with what really happened. And that didn't involve his dad at all.

"I really put it together properly around when people had to explain what puberty was to my sister and I. Only good thing Mother ever did to me was genetically making that late. And, uhh, tall and flat. That was right around the time my dad died, and she really lost her grip on reality. I start ideating about running away with someone I could trust around then. Once I'm fourteen, the guy who took over the Type: Full project from my dad fucks it up so bad they decide to freeze the Nulls, which finally forces our hand and I get outta there in time to grab the last one. That part seems to happen in every reality with a copy of me, and I always seem to change my name to Gladion in particular when I do it. What I name my partner varies, but I chose Hazel..."

He was getting off-topic. "Was not really interested in romance or sexuality back in my own body, replication studies to see if that result can be recreated in different environments are ongoing. But if Laura— friend of mine— had me clocked for gay and I didn't figure it out until after I'm gonna be real mad about it."

He laughed awkwardly at the memory of that party. Least he knew Laura was also queer now. Not that he'd really suspected otherwise, but it was nice to have confirmation. Wasn't worth that creeping sense of oh-fuck-she-might-be-right, but what could he do? Whatever. He brushed it of by shooting a second, smugger smirk to Leona. He was pretty sure he'd won.

"How'd I do? 'Cause I gotta admit, I'm curious how you'd answer the same."

Gladion is sharing his damage with Leona using Pain Split!