Frontier Town The Wanderin' Zera

[Butterfree]

Dave nodded slowly to Gerome, accepting the free drinks. "Well, sure, every fictional superhero is convinced they can best protect their loved ones by leaving them in the dark while they go off and nobly get themselves killed. Never seems to work out all that well for them, though." "We're going to go and torch all the bad guys!"

He listened to Brisa speak as he sipped his drink, his grip tight on the glass. "What a fucking mess. He gets summoned and fails, so Starr gets summoned and fails, so Betel summons a couple dozen people. We'd better pull this off before this ridiculous fucking daisy-chain gets any longer." He shook his head, glancing back at Gerome and then at Brisa. "Who exactly was after Stranger, anyway? I heard you mentioned something about him having some sort of rivalry going with that Greninja, Matthias?"

 

[Namohysip]

"Didn't wanna get too involved there," Gerome said, "but I'm gonna say... Covenant. Pretty obvious to me it was them," he muttered to himself. "Don't think they know my secret. Been trying to lay low.

"Or maybe they do, an' know they don't wanna mess with me. Just to be sure, I trained my strength up... You saw that in action against that Grovyle's 'friend' of hers. Hmph, speaking of which..."

He glanced down the bar at his six assistants, all of them slightly differently hued Mimikyu.

"They're knuckleheads, but with the right direction, they're good runners. I think Cipher forgot about 'em and whoever was supposed to send 'em back overlooked 'em. So now they're workin' here. Couldn't have 'em destitute in the desert..."

 

[Jackie Cat]

Brisa glanced at the Mimikyu with a dull expression, as if the absurdity of the sight didn't fully register.

"You're a right martyr, Gerome," she drawled. "Jus' don't let 'em do any mischief, and I won't find any."

She chuckled quietly and shook her head.

"Anyways. Yeah, my pa was playin' some kinda cat-an'-mouse with a couple a' Lanterns – Covenant agents, I mean. They got their knights, who operate mostly in the open, and I dunno that I'd have much quarrel with them as I've come across. Dunno about the whole of 'em, every group's got its mucksuckers. Then they got their spooks – spies, y'know? Matthias was one. That fella Nolan were another."

She eyed Dave for a moment, as if some recrimination was coming. None came.

"Kindof a stalemate fer a long time, the way I heard it. Think he was tryin' to beat 'em and trail 'em so's he could find their bases, their bosses, and so on. Put together a bunch a' supply caches and hideouts, a whole map of connections pinned to a wall, I'm sure you can imagine. But he was still just one guy 'gainst a score of shadows. And some of them were a match fer him, of course. He weren't used to that."

She scoffed, and gestured to herself.

"Can y'believe I was envious of the bastard? That was afore I were chased across half the damn country by the spooks. I'd like t'see 'em try me again, though..."

 

[Butterfree]

Dave'd been going for which Covenant members had been chasing after Jesse, but before he could clarify to Gerome, Brisa provided the answer. Yeah, figured it'd be Nolan and Matthias. A single Fire-type stereotypical starter Pokémon hunted down by two Water-types. Not exactly laboring for fairness, were they.

At least it was good they didn't know who Gerome was.

"Yeah, we saw his office at the cabin," he replied to Brisa. "Seemed to have a whole conspiracy board, and what, a list of people he thought were human? Plus a journal. He wrote about Ignatius Voclain wanting to kill you." He paused, watching her. Had Brisa ever read the journal? Did she know they'd read about how something had happened, and Voclain had said he'd kill her if it happened again? "It really sounds like your childhood was fucking something. Either way, whatever happened back there, you deserved to be treated like a normal fucking human be-- uh, you know, normal Pokémon. Person."

 

[Namohysip]

Gerome shook his head.

"Ain't an easy battle once the truth comes out," he said to Dave. "It ain't like I can blame the world over it, the basics, I mean. Fundamentally... Brisa ain't the same as a normal, no-human-blood 'mon. She's stronger. She gets stronger, faster. Th' amplification a human gives a Pokemon courses in her all on 'er own.

"It ain't like the human world where all those differences from race an' color an' all that doesn't matter, amounts to so little. Here? Bloodline matters." Gerome huffed, looking away. "The fish ain't gonna work a farm on a field. The plant ain't gonna climb icy mountains." She offered Brisa an apologetic, knowing frown. "An' the human-born ain't gonna fret about weakness the way everyone else might. Sometimes, society compensates... by makin' their lives hard in other ways. Ain't that the truth?

"So in a way, I get it. I get why those humans banded together. They gotta belong. They gotta carve their own place. They're outnumbered, even if maybe they ain't outgunned." He closed his eyes. "...But that ain't gonna make everything else they do right."