Without a wink of sleep in the past three days, Richie simply sat at the edge of his bed, half hoping to see Ramirez or Daniel. He had not seen either since the fiasco at the warehouse. Ramirez was reported MIA and Daniel simply left, possibly back to his mother. The whole time, Richie couldn't help but feel as if he was to blame for the failure that had landed upon them.
"Daniel," Richie sighed, hoping that the mentioning of his name would make him pop up, "Ramirez...please just let me know you're alright..." He had a tear trickle down his left cheek, a second falling from his right. He felt a large amount of sorrow for his friends. The door opened, causing Richie to dry his eyes and stare at the doorway. It was only an Agent, making sure Richie was doing alright.
"Are you okay, Palmer," the agent asked, causing Richie to glare.
"I'm fine," Richie said, with his throat feeling tighter than usual. The agent sighed, trying to comfort Richie in anyway we can. He realized he couldn't, so instead of sticking around, he left Richie to feel sorrowful. With his head buried within his pillow, Richie sobbed deeply, staying there until he drifted to sleep.
-------------------------
Morning rose, waking Richie up. With no sleep until then, Richie felt somewhat refreshed, not feeling bad at all about his friends not being there. He simply left from his room, heading towards the briefing room. He walked into a rather attractive female, standing at 5'3" with light brown skin, curly black hair, and beautiful brown eyes.
"Hey..." Richie said, rather starstruck at the female standing before him. She simply looked at him, wondering who he was and what he wanted. "my name is Richie Palmer, I was wondering if you had any info on the whereabouts of two agents?"
"Firstly," she exclaimed patiently, "that information is classified, therefore, I cannot give it to you. Secondly, I have no clue myself, so it would be useless trying to tell you some false information. Wouldn't you agree, Agent Palmer?" Richie breathed deeply, nodding his head afterwards. She sighed and looked at him. Placing a hand on his shoulder, she tried to comfort the Rebel as much as she could. "I'm sure they're alright. Why don't you go on some more missions and they'll be back by then, okay kid?" Richie pulled away from her grasp, feeling slightly offended.
"I'm no kid," Richie said in an agitated tone. She simply stared at him in confusion, before he realized he made a mistake. "I'm sorry, it's just that I feel responsible for both of them disappearing. More so Ramirez than Daniel..." Her eyebrows raised slightly at the mentioning of the name Ramirez.
"Gregory Ramirez," the girl inquired, "how do you know him?"
"He taught me everything I know," Richie exclaimed. She smiled, removing the glasses she was wearing.
"Come with me," she grinned, causing Richie to be even more intrigued.
-----------------------
"You used to be what," Richie asked in astonishment, causing her to place her hand over his mouth.
"Shut up," she barked, "do you want everyone to know you're in here?"
"It matters," Richie asked, causing the female to roll her eyes. "Besides, I don't even know your name."
"Katt," she told him plainly.
"Huh," Richie stated, dumbstruck. She wrote "Katt" on his palm, kissing it as well.
"That's my name," Katt responded to Richie's confusion. A light clicked on in his head, finally realizing who he was talking to.
"Okay, cool," Richie stated, slightly blushing at her. "I had a pen pal named Katt while I lived in Johto." Katt looked at Richie, unsure as to why he would bring this up. Then again, she had received several letters from a guy named Richie that stayed in New Bark Town.
"What part of Johto," she asked him calmly.
"New Bark Town," Richie stated, being tackled in a hug afterwards.
"Oh my gosh," Katt responded in awe, "it really IS you!" She kissed him on the cheek, making Richie turn scarlet. "I never thought I'd see you! How have you been? Why are you here? What are you doing in Noverus?" She smiled widely, causing Richie to be confused. After looking at her long enough, he recognized her right away. Sure enough, an old friend of his was sitting before him. Before they could catch up, a Veteran bursts through the door.
"Agent Bailey," the veteran exclaimed, immediately noticing Richie, "and Initiate Palmer?" The Vet. scratched his head, finally redirecting his attention to Katt, "urgent news! Agent Ramirez has been found!" A jump from both her and Richie meant only one thing...
Ramirez was alive.
Elsewhere in the facility, a girl with light purple hair slept calmly on a small bed, rolling over every now and then. Having only meant to take a quick nap, the girl known as Violet soon found herself trapped in a dream. Not so much of a dream as a memory however, a memory she would have been best to forget long ago. However no matter how many times she tried to forget it, to focus on the here and now instead of the past, it always managed to come back to her, especially in the worst of times.
"...No..." she murmured, gripping a fistful of blanket with one hand as her other jolted outward, shoving empty air away from herself. The sharp movement caused someone else to stir: a small Pokemon that had been resting at the foot of her bed. It's wide triangle-shaped ears twitched as it raised its large head, staring at its friend with big black eyes. Slowly, the Pichu crawled over behind Violet, and prodded her lightly between the shoulder blades. "Pi?"
Without warning, Violet rolled over again, causing the Pichu to jump backwards, and tumble down onto the ground. "...Chuu..." it groaned, before hopping to its feet. Something told him that she was dreaming again. Even though their time together hadn't been so long, he could tell when she was bothered. Deciding it was time for her to get up, he bounced up onto an empty space on the bed, before racing up her leg and sitting on her chest.
Sparks flew from his cheek as he let out a weak Thundershock, causing Violet to spring up in alarm. Tumbling backwards, the Pokemon stared up at her from the foot of the bed, concerned.
"...Sorry Sparx..." she mumbled weakly, trying to smile as she picked the small Pokemon up. "...I was just dreaming."
"Chu!" Sparx replied, looking almost relieved as he squirmed from his grasp, racing up her arm until he plopped down on her shoulder, a content expression on his face. This caused Violet to laugh.
"I guess we should go check for new assignments." she replied almost casually, getting to her feet as she slipped on her shoes and headed out the door. She had only become a member of the Rebellion a few weeks ago, and during the short time things had changed. She hadn't seen Daniel nor Ramirez for awhile, and she only ever briefly saw Richie as a result of the two crossing paths. While she had joined to end the reign of Aqua and Magma in the once peaceful city, she had been hoping to do so with her friends, familiar faces that she could count on in times of crisis. However they were never assigned together, something which was rather discouraging to one that had little to strive for.
Raine fumbled with her screaming alarm clock, finally finding the button that caused the alarm's screeching to cease. As she was about to fall back to sleep, calculating that she could slumber the 7 minutes that her snooze button allowed, a hot, wet tongue was lapping at her face, and she felt something resembling countless static shocks at the bottom of her feet. She uttered a soft groan, attempting to pull the covers over her face, but the prodding nose of the Houndour managed to bury itself underneath her blanket, nosing curiously at her ear. The Mareep continued it's attention at her toes, finally resorting to nibble on the wiggling demons which were viciously trying to escape.
"Children...must you pester?" she muttered quietly, however, it was followed with a chuckle as she slowly sat up from bed, hugging the Houndour tightly. A concerned bleating rose from the side of her bed, and she realized that her jump-challenged sheep was unable to make the ascent to her comforter. She leaned down, picking up the Mareep, hugging it tightly, feeling a familiar, happy tingling resonating through her nerves. Looking once again at the digital alarm clock by her bed, she found that the struggle between her in her poke'mon had lasted approximately 5 minutes, and thus, it was time to get up. Lowering the Mareep to the ground, and allowing the Houndour to follow her to the kitchen, she stretched gracefully in the middle of her living room, a small squeak emitting from her lips. She made her way to the kitchen, and proceeded to pour herself a glass of milk, her bare feet padding against the hard floor. Her pulse was already beginning to accelerate, and she knew that within half an hour, if she didn't eat anything, her nervous stomach would be unable to keep any food down. Downing the glass of milk, she proceeded to fix breakfast for her two companions, both of which were waiting eagerly at her feet.
"This is why you wanted me to get up, isn't it? You scamps will be the death of me." she stated lightly, reaching down to rub the head of each of her friends. As she drank her milk, she nearly spluttered half of it up as the snooze alarm she had forgotten to turn off started screaming once again for attention. With a look of consternation on her face, she quickly took care of that little issue.
After preparing a meal of an organic Poke'food made out of Pecha berries for her Mareep, and a blend of Cheri Poke'food with Pidgey giblets for her Houndour, she went to go take a bath. She was quite proud of her ability to provide meals that were both high in nutrients and and flavor for her friends, and spent the extra dollar to get food that was natural, instead of the generic "Nibbles 'n' Chunks" brand that most people fed to their poke'mon.
After her bath, she proceeded to get dressed in her customary outfit, which consisted of a black turtleneck, some comfortable blue jeans, and her white tennis shoes. She wrung her hair dry, and after brushing it, made no further attempt to style it or make it look "pretty". It fell at a natural, thick wave alongside her face, and she liked it that way. As she strode back to the kitchen, she laughed softly at the look of a very happy Houndour with food all over his face, and a clean-conscious Mareep who was giving him a look of utter disdain. Raine quickly used a damp paper towel to clean the face of the Houndour, whose only qualm seemed to be the light steam rising from his muzzle from the moisture on the paper towel. "Lucien...we can't have you looking like that on our first day, now can we?" she softly asked the Houndour, who responded with a "Dour!" of acceptance, licking his lips once his master was through with her cleaning.
Raine took a moment to let her Poke'mon digest their breakfast while looking over the assignment she had been given. It seemed to be a relatively simple task, guarding a prisoner, but she still wanted to make sure she had all of her times, locations and passwords correct. She found it mildly redundant that the letter stated that she was to NOT wear her Magma uniform until she arrived at the location multiple times. As much as she described the skimpy outfit, she found it insane that someone would simply wander the streets in their uniform. However, she could picture some excited recruit scampering off to his first mission in the Port District wearing a Magma uniform. The thought made her chuckle. As she looked at the uniform, neatly folded on the arm of the couch, her nose wrinkled in distaste. She liked her body parts to be sufficiently shielded from prying eyes (not that she thought anyone would be looking), but it was part of the job, so she would do what she needed to. She thought back to when she had first tried on the uniform, and how long she had tugged the skirt in an attempt to make it go lower, to no avail. Oh, well. Every job has it's downfalls, she figured.
As she quickly memorized what she needed to, she nodded to herself, a crisp, quick nod that showed her willingness to succeed. She rose from the couch, fingering at the poke'balls on her belt. "Lucien...Omicron...time to go to work." she said in a cheery tone, but was not surprised when both poke'mon retreated; Lucien dove behind the couch, and Omicron dashed to the bathroom. She rubbed her temples, thinking to herself how she shouldn't have spoiled them so much in their younger days. Reaching the poke'ball over the back of the couch to retrieve Lucien, and then moving to the bathroom to get Omicron, she grabbed her uniform and put in in the satchel on her back. "I'm sorry, boys...you know I have to." she apologized to the two poke'balls, before clipping them back to her belt. She did a quick scan of the apartment, to make sure she hadn't forgotten anything, and proceeded to exit, opting to take the elevator instead of her usual traipse down the stairs in an attempt to ease her steadily rising pulse.
The bus ride to the suburbs was uneventful, as far as bus rides go, since her nose was buried deep in a book, titled "How to Interact: A Guide to Pleasant Social Interaction in Everyday Life. As much as Raine believed to be books a cure-all, the tips she was reading practically made her stomach quiver with nervousness. "Step 1: Walk forward confidently and with a pleasant smile on your face, and say: "Hello, my name is ______." What kind of advice was that? She could just imagine herself with a shit-eating grin on her face, walking towards someone with her shoulders back and saying: "Hi, my name is Raine." No matter which way she envisioned it, she realized how impossible it appeared for a 5'0" girl to walk with a confident swagger. The more steps she read, the more nervous she got, so she abandoned the book and proceeded to look out the window. The landscape changed from the big, marvelous houses of the Wealthy District, to smaller, yet still elegant apartment buildings, to somewhat normal looking apartment buildings, to the darker, factory laden area of the suburbs. As the bus stopped, she disembarked, thanking the driver, and looked around at her surroundings. There were a few people meandering around, some looked to be on break, others looked like they were heading to work. Others still just looked like they were taking a nice morning stroll, though why they would choose to take a walk here, she had no idea.
Looking down at her watch, the time read 7:00 AM. She still had two hours until she was due to report at her station. Maybe waking up at 5:30 was a bit too early? Or better yet, maybe they would appreciate her early arrival. Most employers did. She began to walk through the Suburbs, her mind recognizing landmarks from the letter, including a post-office box that leaned slightly to the right. At about 7:30, she recognized the shabby, dark warehouse where she was supposed to be stationed at for the day. Nearing the building, she saw a bright, sparkly, new keypad on the door. Oh, yeah. That wasn't a dead giveaway that something was inside. No matter, she knew what she was here for...and as she typed in the passcode, she heard a confirming click from the door in front of her. Looking around, she saw no one, and proceeded to enter.
The inside of the warehouse was much nicer looking than the outside hinted at. A vending machine stood at the opposite wall, which she thought was an odd addition to a so-called prison. She took a step further inside, and the door closed itself behind her, causing her to jump as it slammed. The residual echo resounded on the solid walls of the room she had entered, and soon, she heard footsteps, running footsteps headed her way. Soon enough, a Team Magma grunt appeared at the doorway next to the vending machine, a look of confusion on his face.
"Who the hell are you? How did you get in here?" he said gruffly, having to lower his gaze to see the small girl. Raven, a bit startled by this gruff introduction, stood there for a moment, before she found her voice, and said "I-I'm Raine. Raine Vega. I know I'm a bit early, but I'm here for the 9:00 shift." Her voice was so pure, but so quiet, the man seemed even more startled by it.
"You're Raine? Tiny thing, aren't you." he said softly, obviously losing a bit of his harsh edge now that he knew some midget wasn't attempting to break into the Warehouse. He did notice Raine's look of distaste as his eyes glanced over her petite figure, and offered her a smirk in return. "Well, alright. Welcome to your first assignment, Recruit. You can come back here to change...don't worry, you get you're own room." he added, seeing her eyes widen as he stated the word 'change'. She followed him to the back, keeping a modest distance between the man who was at least a foot taller than her. They passed a series of rooms, all dimly lit and shady. Raine had no idea whether these rooms held prisoners, or if they were actual rooms for storing things.
"You don't talk much, do you?" she heard him say, which brought her out of her thoughts. She didn't respond for a moment, trying to think of something to say to that, but simply settled with a shrug and a quiet "Nope." She felt a little bad for not saying more than that, but she couldn't really think of anything to say, and she was still a bit offended at the way he was looking at her, earlier. The awkward silence ended, however, when they moved to a more brightly lit room, which looked like a workroom. There was another vending machine (to which Raven thought "Is there really a need for two?"), and a long table that had numerous papers and food remnants on it from what she guessed were previous shifts. She wrinkled her nose a bit at the sight of the food, but she quickly turned the look into a soft smile.
"Well, here's home. Heh." he stated, extending his arms and looking around the room. "You can wait in here until your shift starts. The bathroom..." he pointed to a small door at the corner of the room "...is over there. You can change in there. You can sign in..." he now pointed to a clipboard on the table "...over there. Just your name and the time will do. Oh, and by the way, my name's Thomas. You can call me Tom." he said with a wink, which was reciprocated by a slow blink from Raine, and an awkward, tiny smile. Quickly, she remembered Step 2 in the book she read on the bus. "It's nice to meet you, Tom." she said softly, nodding towards him.
"Hey, we may make a talker out of you yet, Raine. I'm gonna' go check on the prisoner. Let you have some privacy while you change and what-not." he said with a grin. He was missing a tooth.
Raine watched him leave, breathing a sigh of relief. Well, that hadn't been...too...awful. She really didn't want to change right at this moment, but she realized with a sense of uncertainty that there might be more than one reason he wanted her to call him Tom. She didn't want any peepers. She hefted her satchel on her arm and walked to the bathroom, opening the door with a bit of a tug, considering the door stuck a little.
Great. Just wonderful. The damn bathroom had a window. She paused and stared at the window incredulously for a moment, before devising a quick plan. She would change as quickly, and as efficiently as possible. In literally a few moments, she was in her undergarments, and attempting to put on the Magma gear. This involved much hopping, and a thud into the door, which nearly opened upon her falling on it. She grabbed onto the handle and closed it a little, before getting the rest of her gear on. Her hair was tousled and messy with the effort, and as she clipped her poke'balls onto her Magma belt, she noticed in the cracked mirror that her face was slightly pink with the effort. She took a moment to compose herself, and checked her gear to see that it was sufficiently where it should be, and it met her satisfaction. Slowly, she opened the door and poked her head outside, seeing Thomas in a chair that was leaned back against the wall, reading a magazine.
Upon hearing the creaking of the door, he looked towards her and smiled. "Come on, now, don't be shy. Let's see ya'." he said, his hand motioning for her to exit. Slowly, she stepped out, her little hands tugging at the bottom of her skirt, just to make sure that it was down as low as it could go. She felt her face flush as he whistled at her, and he sat up a bit straighter in his chair, folding his magazine on his chest. "Well, aren't you a little cutie?" he said sweetly, his eyes sweeping over her body in a slower fashion this time. Raine wanted to disappear. Looking down at her watch, the time read 8:03. She still had 57 minutes to go until her shift started.
She never thought she would be so excited to start working.
"Gentlemen!" Abraham West announced cheerfully once a fourth stranger sat down at his table at a dive bar in the Wealthy District. Normally, he figured they would have kicked out someone who lived in the slums, but Abraham managed to bring along a few of his nicest suits to Noverus and very much looked like he belonged. "Who here's been to Texas?"
There was a look of confusion on their faces. "Neither have I. But this, my friends, is how they play poker. It's called Texas Hold 'Em. Basically the same as regular poker, except you only get two pocket cards. You make your initial bets - I wouldn't recommend going overboard quite yet even if you happen to get Pocket Aces - And then I draw three community cards: The Flop. These apply to everybody. We bet, then comes the Turn, one more card, then we bet, then the River, another card, then we bet again. That's it. So who's in?"
"What the hell is Texas?" one of the men asked, a big guy with an impressive beard and a juxtaposing suit. "We play that all the time here. It's just called Hold 'Em."
"Fair enough," Abraham wasn't about to argue with this man. "So, everyone here already knows how to play?" The men all nodded. "Perfect! Then I won't feel so bad about taking all your money." He smiled jokingly and the men laughed. Of course they were confident in their card playing abilities. More importantly, they were rich. Should luck not go his way, Abraham would probably be in trouble due to them playing high stakes, which he did not have, but he was confident.
Rightfully so, it seemed. After five minutes, he came to the realization that these guys were chumps. They bluffed nothing way too often and were so obvious when they got a good hand. Needless to say, Abraham cleaned up. It all came down to what looked like the last round. While Abraham had the majority of the money, the two other remaining players (two were already knocked out) were betting pretty vigorously. He was pretty confident with his hand, a straight before the River, so he just kept checking. He was pleased with the look of nervousness which overtook the other two men when they saw that everyone else was either checking or raising the bet. They were, of course, trying to hide their nervousness, but their tells were clear.
The Flop was 5 of Hearts, 6 of Diamonds and 8 of Clubs. The Turn was a King of Diamonds. Thanks to Abraham's Pocket 7 of Spades and 9 of Clubs, he had a solid straight. The King of Diamonds didn't help him, but it also probably wouldn't help anyone else thanks to the Flop being so low.
Finally, one of the men put in his last chip, but said, "Hold on," as he took off his watch. "Let's call this four hundred." and threw it in the pile.
The other man looked at his own pile of chips, which did not add up to four hundred. "You know what? I'm out," He took his pile of chips, significantly smaller than what it started, to turn it back into cash. This left Abraham and the man who bet his watch. Of course, that man was bluffing. He could see it. Even though it meant betting most of his remaining chips, he called it. "And the River," A 5 of Clubs, which didn't do anything to help Abraham's straight but it did make a pair within the community cards. He beat a pair easily, though, so-
"Yes!" the other man couldn't help but react. Abraham got a little nervous. Did this son of a bitch just get super lucky on the River? It was too late now, though. He had already bet on this hand too many chips and was left with less than what he started with. This was particularly problematic because he did not have the money to back it up. So he better win.
"Well, you don't have anything else," Abraham said, "So, you ready?" He turned over his 7 of Spades and 9 of Clubs, combining with the Flop's 5, 6 and 8 to make a straight. "Straight."
The other man showed his two cards with the biggest smirk on his face. 8 of Diamonds and 5 of Spades. "Son of a bitch!" Abraham shouted. The guy had a two-par (5s and 8s) until that damn 5 of Clubs showed up, pulling it up to a Full House. He should have won. He should have just walked away after he won enough, but he had to insist. And now it was time to pay up, but that wasn't going to happen. As the man was putting his watch back up, Abraham calmly stood up from his chair. "Good game, Jake," he said, holding out his hand. Jake smiled and shook Abraham's hand.
"Good game, Abe," Jake replied. "Looks like I took your m-" Abraham bolted. It lacked a sort of finesse, he was aware, but looking like a fool was probably better than getting the living hell beat out of him. Jake may have been rich, but he was a big guy.
He ran plenty fast enough to get to his motel in the Poor District without being followed. Finally, he locked his door and went to his dresser where three pokeballs were sitting idly along with a bag of pokemon food. He pulled two of them out and summoned Double A, an elekid and Gaia, a swinub. Breathing heavily, he fell onto his bed. As he closed his eyes, he felt Gaia's nose nuzzle up against his legs. Right. He forgot to feed them that morning.
He went to the same dresser and got the back of food. He opened it up and half heartedly poured a bunch into two separate bowls. He didn't even change out of his suit before he passed out on his bed, face down.
He woke up to noise. He quickly turned over to see Double A knocked out cold and Gaia trying so hard to fight off a venomoth, but one Psychic was enough to knock her out clean. By the door were two men and a medicham. One of these men was the bearded man who Abraham neglected to pay. "Jake!" he shouted. "What the hell is-"
"Knock him out, Tanya," Jake said. Tanya, evidently the medicham, summoned a quick burst of power and smacked Abraham in the head, knocking him out.
His unconscious body, along with his passed out pokemon, who were in their respective pokeballs and being held by Jake, arrived at a Team Magma prison in the suburbs around 9:15 that morning. The two men carried his well dressed body up to the door and input the passcode.
"...So then, I was 10 years old at Christmastime, right? My mom had promised to get me a Ponyta due to the whole 'Santa's sleigh crashed last year' excuse the year before, right? Guess what was under the tree. An apple. A single, small, tiny, wormy apple. At first I thought it was for the Ponyta, but noo...Mom told me that the Ponyta had burned Santa's sleigh down, and had to be humanely euthanized. I found out a few years later that my dad had an eggnog problem and proceeded to go streaking at the local orpanage, which, of course, completely destroyed their nativity scene. Mom had to sell the Ponyta for bail money. Now, isn't that some shit?"
Raine was so far hidden into her book that only her eyes could be seen, pointed towards the direction of Tom. Tom had deemed her worthy of sharing his entire life with, and he had done so for the past 45 minutes. Raine had offered little input towards the biography, only nodding and shaking her head where it was appropriate. She thought that if she seemed distracted, he might leave her alone, but that tactic didn't work. Instead, she was now looking for a new tactic, in the other book she had brought with her: "How to AVOID Social Interaction: A Guide on How to Get Out of Those Awkward Situations.". Ironically, it had been sold as a companion to the book she had been reading on the bus, which should have been a tip-off to the calibur of the author. She had managed to turn discreetly to: "Method 7: Check your watch and say you have something to do." Obediently lowering the book she checked her watch, which read 8:56. Her heart leapt with excitement, and her feet did as well, as she sprang to her feet and snapped the book shut, which startled the reminiscent Tom.
"Oh, look! It's time for my shift!" she exclaimed, pointing to the clock on the wall. However, in her excitement, it had come out: "OhlookitstimeFORmySHIFT!" in a garbled language that Tom had no inkling what to do with. However, as he looked towards the clock, he slowly gathered what she had meant, and sadly said "Oh...yes, yes it is. What a shame. I was enjoying our conversation." He shook his head, and shrugged. "Maybe we could finish it after your shift is over? Maybe enjoying a cup of coffe-...Raine?" he queried, lifting his head to find the clipboard swinging on the wall, a freshly inked sign in on it's front page, and the sound of feet scuttling down the hallway. "...Man, she's such a tease." he said with a sigh, proceeding to find a magazine on the table and absorb himself in an article having something to do with car parts.
Raine breathed a sigh of relief to herself as she escaped the room containing Tom and the first 10 years of his life. She was tired of his crude language and lack of general knowledge. She was also tired of her throwing bits of paper at her while she had been pretending to nap. Tugging on her skirt, she stood in the hallway, coming to the realization that she still didn't know where the prisoner was located. She began to peek into each room, attempting to find something that even closely resembled a jail cell. One smelled of dirty socks, the other looked as though someone had had a pillow fight in it recently (the amount of loose feathers in there was staggering), and one had faint, sultry music playing. She closed that door rather quickly, looking around to see if Tom had stalked her to that room. As she was close to losing hope (and faith in the fact that this was indeed a prison) she came across a room that had no door, but contained bars, a chair, and a man in said chair who was snoring loudly and had a rather foul magazine on his lap. Raine was smart enough to know that "Santa's Little Helpers" typically wore clothes. Judging by his Magma uniform, she could assume that this was the guy she was going to be replacing.
Averting her gaze as much as possible from the girl smiling at her from the cover of the magazine, she shoved the man's shoulder. When that didn't do anything, she shoved him again, only this time, she uttered a soft "Hey. Heeey. Wake up." When that didn't work, she, in frustration, picked up the smiling girl magazine and started tapping him on the head with it, which did the trick. He awoke with a snort, and when he saw his magazine in her hand, he grabbed at it and snatched it out of her hands. "It's not mine..." he said groggily, rubbing his eyes with his free hand and looking inside the cell, to see the prisoner was still in there. He then looked back up at Raine, and gave her a semi-toothless smile. "You're a girl." he said plaintively, and tugged at his shirt as though he were attempting to make himself look nicer. Raine wrinkled her nose a bit, crossing her arms in front of her. "Yeah. We exist outside the pages of your...fascinating...literature. But, most importantly, I'm your replacement. You can go." she stated quite bluntly, her eyes darting to the rolled up magazine and back to his less-than-charming grin without the slightest change of expression.
As he rose to his feet and stretched, he let out a profound groan and flexed in a poor attempt to impress his replacement. Looking around to gauge her response, he found that he had to look down to see the tiny, female intruder. "You're small." he muttered, smirking at the 5'0" tall girl who was giving him a look that could have melted glass. "You're just full of wonderful information today, aren't you, Skippy?"she said sarcastically, and when he nodded slowly, she put her hand to her temple and sighed. "Just...go sign out, okay? Thomas is waiting for you."
"Does Thomas have any of my pizza left?"
"...What?"
"My pizza. Does he have it?"
"...I don't know. Go find out. Go on." she said in an exasperated tone, motioning him out the door. She might have been shy, but for some reason, she was able to talk to people whose IQ was room temperature. Perhaps it was because she felt that they didn't have the mental capacity to judge her words. Needless to say, she was slightly disheartened. Were all men this intellectually unstable around here? Her thought was confirmed as she thought she faintly heard a "Meanie..." come from his retreating back. Shaking her head, her cheeks puffed out in a long sigh as she turned and contemplated the chair he had been sitting in. She quickly decided that that chair was unclean, considering she had no idea he had been entertaining himself with that magazine. However, all she cared about was that it was quiet and still. Still and quiet. This was how she liked things to be.
She walked around the area that would be her home for the next 10 hours and got a measure of where everything was. Next to the chair was a desk with a lamp, and a drawer. Upon inspecting the drawer, she saw some poke'balls, a key, and a pen and paper. She assumed that the poke'balls belonged to the prisoner, and quietly closed the drawer. She unhooked her own poke'balls and quickly summoned the poke'mon within. Lucien and Omicron appeared, looking quite happy to see her, but quite confused with their surroundings. "Easy, guys. We're at work. You guys have got to help me in keeping this fellow inside, okay?" she said softly, kneeling and petting them both on the head. The cooperative "Dour!" and "Ma!" that followed caused her to smile, and she scratched both of them behind the ears. However, Lucien's demeanor quickly changed from one of relaxation to alertness, and the footsteps coming down the hall caused her to rise to her feet.
As she did so, two men carrying a limp body entered the cell. Raine's poke'mon, sensing her tenseness, growled and sparked menacingly in their own respective manners. "Got another one for ya'." one of the men said gruffly, before standing in front of her, almost expectantly. "Well, you just gonna' stand there, or are you gonna' open the door?" the other man asked, hefting the man's feet impatiently. Raine responded with a quiet "Oh!", and went to the drawer, grasping the key in her shaking fingers and proceeding to unlock the door. As it slid open with a creak, the men unceremoniously threw the limp body inside and slid the door shut with a slam. Both the sound of the man hitting the ground and the slam made her wince, and the man who had been at the front tossed her the key after the door had been locked, and a couple of poke'balls. Raine awkwardly, if not miraculously caught all of the items, her hood falling down in the process.
"Hey. You're a girl." the man who had been at the back said with a soft laugh, nudging his partner, who also proceeded to chuckle. Raine simply nodded, still in a state of shock, and said "Yes." As they turned and started to leave, Raine followed after them, and with a tone of concern in her voice, asked "W-wait! I was told I was only guarding one prisoner! What am I supposed to do?" The men slowly turned, and shrugged. "You figure it out, lady. We're just the delivery boys."
And with that, they were gone.
Raine slowly turned and walked back into her little area, which had so recently been a place of comfort. While she was quite confident at her poke'mon's abilities to take down two exhausted prisoners, she was still not one for surprises. She steadily walked back in, looking at the unconscious man on the ground, and at the other prisoner. Since he hadn't spoken, she had no idea if he was awake, or even alive for that matter, but she would assume that he was awake now, since the commotion had been quite raucous, if she did say so herself. She gently lowered the poke'balls into the drawer, along with the key, and looked down to find Lucien and Omicron at her feet, looking up at her with confused, and concerned expressions. As she closed the drawer, she knelt down and petted them, the gentle motion being quite reassuring to her newfound worry. "It's alright, boys...we can handle this." she said reassuringly, and as Lucien licked her face, she felt her own words sink in. She could handle this. Magma wouldn't have let her in if she couldn't. She would simply have to be at the top of her game, that's all. Being a girl of considerable knowledge, she was always at the top of her game. To not be so was...illogical.
Abraham woke up about ten seconds before gathering the courage to open his eyes. He was looking up at a particularly dull ceiling, his right arm resting on his chest and his left off to his left side. His feet were lying with an unfortunate lack of grace as well. He straightened his body up before pulling himself to a sitting position on the floor. From there, he was able to further analyze the situation.
There was a single bed, and a man resting on that. That man was likely asleep. When he looked to his right, there were bars and outside of them was a chair with a very small but cute young lady in an unfashionable yet seductive red outfit surrounded by two capable looking pokemon, a houndour and a mareep. He cleared his throat before he spoke, not to get her attention, but to make sure that his voice didn't crack or anything that could be embarrassing. He was imprisoned, perhaps, but the fact that he was still wearing a very nice suit and tie told him that it did not mean coolness stopped mattering.
"Hey," he said to the girl as he straightened up his hair. She looked like she was the shy type, which would make seducing her a challenge, but he knew how to do it. He was Abraham West, after all. "Those two didn't happen to bring a couple of pokeballs, did they?"
Stirring lightly, and now looking towards the bars that confined him, Ramirez noticed immediately two things. A new guard and a new roommate.
"Oh joy," Ramirez scowled as he saw the pair talking to each other. "A new person to talk to. Now I won't be bored. The sarcasm was rather thick in his voice, almost as thick as the facial hair he had now. His former baby face appearance now was made more rugged with a full beard and mustache combo. His eyebrows were even thicker that before and his hair had now grown to ridiculous lengths. He looked at Abraham briefly before focusing more on Raine. Her blue eyes intrigued him, these being his favorite part of a female. The brighter color the eyes, the more intrigued he is. He walked into the light, making himself visible to Raine as well as his cell mate, Abraham. He smiled his smug little smile, this now looking rather different than it had before. He looked like a pervy old man in his thirties, so a pervy, middle-aged man. "Can I get a pair of hair clippers," Ramirez asked his new guard, "and some edgers and a razor?"
Raine slowly turned her head towards the other prisoner, who had finally risen from his slumber. As he rose to his feet, she heard Lucien growl, and she did not stifle him or reprimand him; he was protecting his friend, which was exactly what he had been trained to do. Her eyebrow cocked at his sarcastic comment, and as he continued to stare at her, she stared back with determined resignation, even though this prolonged eye-contact was making her feel very uncomfortable.
As he walked into the light, Raine looked up at him, as she did everyone else, since everyone else was basically two heads taller than her, but she maintained eye-contact. Maybe talking with the other prisoner (whose name she still did not know) was a bad idea, made her seem soft and pliable to this man's will.
As he asked for a razor, her brow quirked, and she blinked at him for a moment, to see if he was joking. After a moment of silence, her soft voice echoed back to him "What, are you serious?". After a moment or two of silence, she raised her hands to her temples, as if in defeat, and said "Sure, I'll get you a razor. While I'm at it, I'll go ahead and give you the key to this cell, as well as a chisel and a hammer to get through the bars, if that doesn't work." The sarcasm was now thick on her voice, and she shook her head, her mind racing with thoughts of how people could think she was that stupid. Even if the man just wanted to shave his face, there was no way she was going to allow him to have anything that could hurt her, or her poke'mon, or the other prisoner, for that matter.
Turning back to look at the open doorway, and the lit hall outside, she checked her watched to see what time it was. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me." she grumbled to herself. 10:30. She had only been there for an hour and a half. She was contemplating going to ask Tom if he had any more stories to tell her. Inhaling deeply, she exhaled through her mouth. Think positive, she kept thinking to herself. Think positive. The man she had talked to hadn't been so bad, even if he had tried to manipulate her in the beginning. They didn't know anything about her, not even her name, so she was relatively safe, in that aspect.
"Oy, Raine!"
Raine's eyes slowly closed, and her nostrils flared in exasperation, as Tom's hulking form stood in the doorway, holding out a plate with an absolutely disgusting piece of pizza on it. "I hid this pizza from Jake, and told him I ate it all. I thought you might be hungry." he said proudly, wiggling it towards her. As he flashed his priceless, toothless grin, Raine merely crinkled her nose at the pizza, which she thought, in the dim light, had something moving on it. "Tom...I'm...not really hungry right now." she said with an air of forced politeness, the smile she had been trying to create ending up looking like more of a grimace as the pizza neared her face.
"Ya' sure? Well, alright, I'll save it for ya', then. These guys givin' you any trouble?"
"No, not at all, Tom. In fact, I think they're the nicest men I've met today." she stated smoothly, only now realizing that she had literally backed into a corner, in an attempt to escape the pizza. Tom blinked, and with a loud guffaw, he pointed to her with his free hand, and followed it with a knee-slap. "Nicest men?! That's a good one, Raine! I'm liking you more and more!"
His laughter disappeared down the hall, and she heard repeated "Nicest men...that's a good one!" until he finally made it back to the workroom. Raine exhaled the breath she had been holding, and her hand, yet again, made it's way to her temple. She was going to end up rubbing a hole in her skull if this kept up. She slowly turned towards the two men in the cell, offering them a look of complete frustration that would have made a sailor cry.
So much for them not knowing her name.
Ramirez chuckled lightly, he knew that she was going to be fun trying to get his way with. He automatically noticed how she assumed he was going to break out, making him laugh this time.
"I honestly didn't think you'd give them to me," he replied, pulling out a razor from his back pocket, "so I brought one with me." He pulled out a small cannister, filled with shaving cream, popping off the top gently before squirting the gel onto his hand. He rubbed the substance on his face vigorously, making sure the entire beard was covered. He then walked to the small sink that they were provided, beginning to remove the facial hair that bothered him so...
-----
Five minutes passed, with Ramirez's face now looking squeaky clean as it did before. He rubbed his chin and upper lip in pride and success, smiling widely at his reflection. He then looked back towards Raine, still intrigued as to why Magma would have such a small girl watching over them. Though the idea was ridiculous to him, Ramirez said nothing before stretching and yawning loudly.
"You're doing a better job than the last people watching me," Ramirez told her, "they did everything for me. They even gave me some good food to eat." Sure enough, there was a large amount of plates stacked on top of each other, with a small pile of bones on the ground beside them. "Oh by the way," Ramirez smiled as he looked at both of them, "the name's Ramirez. Nice meeting you both."
Abraham sat against the wall as Ramirez spoke a lot. The man clearly liked the sound of his own voice, perhaps to a debilitating level. He was trying so hard to be nonchalant that his efforts gave him away. As the man began shaving his thick beard, Abraham touched his own, which was similarly growing more than he preferred, but he decided against asking to borrow the man's razor. It did make him a little uncomfortable that this man had a razor at all, but he wasn't going to hurt him with it.
He couldn't help but smile slightly when the girl stood tall against the larger man. Smaller or not, she had the power here. Stockholm syndrome wasn't supposed to take effect this soon, but he seemed okay with it. He couldn't help but notice another of his captors call her Raine, which seemed to frustrate her to no end. He didn't say anything, because he hadn't won anything quite yet, but he made a mental note. Raine. He then cracked half a smile at her on the side of his mouth where his fellow inmate could not see.
Ramirez chirpily introduced himself to Abraham and Raine. Abraham simply nodded at his cellmate without providing his own name. He didn't want to bond with this man. "What're you in here for, Ramirez?" he simply asked.
Ramirez looked at his cell mate, noticing the tone that was used. He automatically noticed that Abraham didn't exactly trust him.
"Well, for starters," Ramirez explained slowly, "I am a member of the Rebellion...you know, the guys that they call Rebel scum?" He nodded towards Raine, not knowing she was a new member of Magma, just knowing she was a new guard. He then noticed her Pokemon, Looking at him dangerously and with some form of hatred. He pulled out a Poke Ball, opening it up, revealing his Charmeleon. Apparently, they hadn't taken his Pokemon either. The Charmeleon simply looked at Raine and her Pokemon, not saying anything. A ring of smoke bellowed from his nose as he waited patiently for anything to be said.
Raine's eyes widened as the man pulled out the razor and began to groom himself. She snapped her fingers, and issued the command for Omicron to place his tail against the bars again, to keep the man from rushing the bar with a sharp object. Her mind reeled with confusion and frustration: there was a prisoner in front of her, who had a weapon that was perfectly capable of injuring her or his own cellmate, and no one had thought to do a check? She completely missed out on Abraham's smile, since her blue eyes were riveted on the razor.
However, it was when the poke'ball was withdrawn, and the charmeleon exposed, that she proceeded to take action. "Ramirez, I will ask you once, and only once. Return your poke'mon to it's captive state, and, along with the razor, lay them near the bars of this cell. You have no choice but to comply, or I will be forced to take action." she said menacingly, and Lucien, hearing the tone of her voice, proceeded to face the man and growl. She looked over to Abraham, the anger flickering in her eyes. Her eyes turned back to the man called Ramirez, and they narrowed with disdain.
It was clear, in her mind, that he was taunting her, with this show of power. She would be damned if he let him think for one moment that he had the upper hand here. "Any other poke'mon or items you have should be removed and placed by the prior poke'ball and razor. I would hope that you are honest about it; I have full clearance to allow my Mareep to paralyze you, so that I may do a search of my own." she warned, looking down at Omicron, whose very fleece seemed to crackle with confirmation.
"Sheesh," Ramirez complained loudly, "you're dangerous when you get mad...return Charmeleon." With a flash of red light, the lizard went back into the Poke Ball. He took the razor and placed it next to the bar along with Charmeleon's Poke Ball. He simply looked at her, emptying his pockets to show nothing but a few candy bars left. Shaking them to show that they weren't dangerous, he placed them back into his pocket. Ramirez then pulled out his wallet as well, this being deadly empty minus his driver's license he had received a while back. He threw it down with the Poke Ball and razor, stepping away from the bars back into the shadows. "Any more commands you have," Ramirez asked impatiently, "I'm a busy guy and I'm still waiting on my hearing to see how long I'm gonna be held in here before they take whatever actions their gonna take." His brown eyes flaring with anger as well, he simply glared back at the new guard.
When Ramirez summoned Charmeleon, Abraham's eyes widened. The razor wasn't much of an issue, but a firebreathing lizard could be deadly. Needless to say, he was scared. He looked over at Raine with urgency and then back at Ramirez and then to the pokemon. "This is not okay," he said quietly to himself. "Not right. No good."
Thankfully, Raine handled up on the situation real good. He gave up the razor and the pokeball with Charmeleon inside. Ramirez seemed exceptionally angry at the whole situation, surprising because he had been imprisoned the whole time. What made now different from two minutes ago? He didn't have weapons? Did he expect to be able to keep them after flaunting them in front of his captor?
"What did you expect would happen, Ramirez?" Abraham asked, calming down a little now that his life was in less immediate danger. "She'd just be cool with you keeping a firebreather around while you're supposed to be imprisoned?" Before his cellmate could respond, though, he stood up. "Hold up a second. It seemed to me like a pretty important deal that I not have my pokemon with me," He looked over at Raine, with a look of "Right?" on his face. "Now how the hell did you get in here with a pokemon? Why the hell did no one check you?" He looked over to Raine. "Why didn't you check him?"
He realized his enemy here was not Raine immediately after he asked, though. She was the one who made him give up his pokemon. It was someone else who decided not to check him. "What is this? What's going on?" He was asking Ramirez. "Who are you?" He shook his head as he spoke, his eyes burning. "Don't tell me your name."
"I'm an Agent in the Rebellion," Ramirez said, breathing heavily as if he was tired of repeating the same thing over and over again. "We're masters at stealth and being sneaky." He looked at Abraham's face, automatically realizing that he thought Ramirez was gonna kill him. "You aren't one of them are you?" Ramirez asked with disdain, "you aren't a Magma, right?" Anger fueled his body while he clenched his fists. His eyes now burning more intensely than before. He didn't mind being captured, or not keeping his Pokemon and his razor, but he wouldn't tolerate being captive by TWO Magmas at once.
As Raven's frustration grew, the calmer she looked. She reached through the bars, taking the contraband and setting it on the desk. The cool voice of logic cascaded through her mind like a trickling fountain, allowing her to master her frustration and angst at the situation, and allow proper thought. As she heard his sneering, sarcastic voice, she turned to him, offering him a gentle, sweet smile. "Nothing more is needed at this time, Mr. Ramirez. Thank you for your cooperation. It is much appreciated." she stated pleasantly, without a harsh edge to her voice in the slightest.
Striding over to her chair, she sat down in it, idly looking over to the rising tension in the cell. She almost smirked at the fact of how angry Ramirez was; this fellow teased her suspicious nature. What was he up to? How had he managed to get two potentially dangerous items past the last guard, or even past Thomas? His whole demeanor caused her to ponder, which was why hearing herself being referenced by the other prisoner caused her to start.
The other prisoner, whose name she did not know, seemed to be getting more and more infuriated by the one known as Ramirez. To be honest, Raine didn't blame him; he was cocky and rude and was hiding something that the intelligent Raine was working hard to decipher. If Thomas ever brought her a file for the two prisoners, she would be sure to write her suspicions in Ramirez' file, as well as his violent behavior. She'd be reporting Thomas' and the other guard's negligence as well.
Still sending out a barrage of questions, Raine looked calmly towards the man she had shared such a nice conversation with before, and lifted her brow, as though to say "C'mon, now. You know better." but remained silent. Her calm, focused demeanor was intimidating to most, honestly, and she upped the anty by allowing herself to check under her fingernails, which were long and clean. She listened to Ramirez' angry retort, tilting her head towards him as the man seemed unjustifiably and horrendously upset, to the point of clenching his fists in a threatening manner. This had gone on long enough.
"Silence, now." she commanded with a slightly raised tone, rising from her seat and looking at both of them. A strand of her black hair fell betwixt her sapphire eyes, and her head canted to the side in a studious, authoritative manner. "Now, I realize you fellows don't want to be here, hm?" she queried, raising her brows as though asking a legitimate question, her hands also raised, palms to the ceiling. Lowering her hands, she clasped them behind her, and began to pace. "Now, Mr. Ramirez, as I explained to your cell-mate here, I have a job to do, which is to keep you in this cell until any point that my superiors decide to move you, such as, for your trial. Part of that entails keeping myself alive, so I can accept promotion, and another part of that involves keeping your cellmate alive, so he can receive his just punishment for his...for whatever he did wrong."
Raine paused when addressing the other inmate, choosing not to divulge the information he had disclosed to her. It was unnecessary for Ramirez to know. She stopped in her pacing, one toe precariously lifted off the ground, as she seemed to freeze while her brain formulated her next phrases, so as not to risk embarrassing herself with stuttering. "Now...I have no need to explain myself to you, but since my job entails treating both of you with unbiased and uncompromising emotion to keep my job and your lives intact..." her eyes very briefly flashed away from Ramirez to the other cellmate, as if to tell him this was all pomp and circumstance, really, "...I would like to ask you, hypothetically of course, if you were in my position, and one of your captives...well, let's just say your Resistance force captured me. Hypothetically, how would you feel if I produced a sharp, deadly object, alongside a potentially dangerous poke'mon?"
Before he got the chance to answer, she made a turn in her line of pacing, and as her heels clicked together, her eyes locked directly on the other cellmate's pupils. She really felt much like a teacher. "As for you." she began, looking at his tense and stressed features, but not allowing the hardness in her eyes to disappear. "As a recruit, I was instructed that this man, Ramirez, had already been searched, and thus, my only instruction was to keep him, and eventually yourself, sane. As you came into my care, I was the one who...searched you..." she cleared her throat, tugging at her hood in an attempt to shield the flush that came to her cheeks. She was on a roll, she couldn't stop now. "...and thus removed anything that could have possibly harmed myself, my pokemon, or your cellmate. For this whole endeavor, I am sorry, and I will do my utmost to make sure both of you feel safe and secure while under my watchful gaze." Her eyes reflected the slightest amount of distrust that had lingered in her eyes before their conversation; her trust was difficult to get, and even harder to maintain.
"With all of that mess said..." she quipped, turning to face both of them again, her head tilting to the opposite side this time, and a smile lingering on her lips; "I think you will both agree with me when I say that the remainder of this time would be better spent in silence, unless the two of you have a direct question for myself, in which I will be happy to respond." And with that, she swiftly turned and took the two steps to her chair, and sat down, crossing her arms as if the matter was finished. She could only hope the fellows took her advice, she wasn't sure if she could handle two bickering children all day.
"Bite me," Ramirez said before finally flopping on his bed, turning away from them both. He simply stared at the wall, his stomach then beginning to growl loudly. He dug deeply into his pockets, pulling out a candy bar and began to take a bite before looking at the other two. Without a second thought, he pulled out two more, tossing one to Abraham and one to the bars. "Better yet," Ramirez began before beginning to calm down, "bite that. It's pretty good. Trust me, I wouldn't do anything to harm anyone." He took a bite of his candy bar, the flavors swirling in his mouth like a violent tornado, causing a satisfied "mmm" to slip from his lips. After chewing for about thirty seconds, he swallowed deeply and looked at Raine.
"To answer your question," Ramirez retorted, still maintaining the calm, confident attitude he had earlier, "the Rebellion doesn't take prisoners. We release those that have been held captive by almost everyone's enemy." He then looked at Abraham, noticing his demeanor had changed for the worst. "I don't harm civilians, so unless you really have a problem with what I've been saying, then that look doesn't concern me. Not only that, but I've noticed a few things about both of you, just from hearing your voices and looking at you." As if he was mimicking the deciphering skills of Raine, he simply placed his hand on his chin, thinking before making any sudden statements. "You sir," he said pointing to Abraham, "are a gambler. You aren't in here for anything ordinary, but it's not unheard of either. Some people are sore losers and others...well are sore winners..." He then directed his gaze to Raine. "You, on the other hand, are new here." He continued to simply stare, "you see, those guys watching me from before, they were old...associates of mine. They owed me a favor from way way back. Before we went our separate ways. It wasn't a failure to search me. Oh they searched me rather...thoroughly." He paused before shuddering, remembering the grueling search that went on. "In the end, they let me keep my best friend. More like my pet than something dangerous.
"I couldn't harm anyone," Ramirez concluded, "which is why they let me keep the razor. They knew the most I could do was shave. I'm not a master lock pick or any of that crap. I'm just a simple Agent First Class in the Rebellion." After breathing deeply, he smiled, showing off his bright, white teeth. "Well, now that I've gotten that off my chest without so much as a 'Shut the hell up, inmate!', I feel better...you guys can go ahead and tell me about yourselves now." Ramirez simply sat down, waiting on one of them to begin their tale of why they were there.
"Pass," Abraham said in response to both Ramirez's snack and to his request that he spin a tale. As far as he could tell, both Ramirez and Raine were his enemies, however cute the latter may have been, and he needed to maintain some level of distance. Instead, he sat back down against the wall.
As far as Ramirez's supposition that he was a gambler, he wanted so hard to chalk that up to luck. This kind of knowledge could not be obtained simply by mannerisms or speech. That either meant the kid was very lucky, which was possible given his apparent luck with the guard who searched him and decided it would be okay to leave him a charmeleon, or it meant he knew someone on the inside: Someone who could purposely leave him a powerful pokemon, a useful tool and some convenient information about his cellmate and guard.
The problem here was that if Ramirez was telling the truth, this "man" on the inside was probably a member of the rebellion, an organization with which Abrahm did not want to become involved. He began to wonder to himself if, if it came down to it, he would accept their help in order to escape his cell. This seemed to be the direction things were going, at least. Ramirez seemed far too confident that he was going to be A-Okay which, paired with his "luck" streak, meant someone was planning on busting this kid out. Would they offer to help Abraham too? Would he accept it?
It was clear that, of the two other people in the room, Raine was the closest to his friend. Ramirez should have been, but the kid was plotting something and not letting Abraham in on it. It was always smart to assume you're on the bad end of any sort of plot, and so he was going to go ahead and do that. If Ramirez was planning some sort of prison break, he wasn't doing it with Abraham's help, and that meant he was more in the way than anything else. Raine, at least, seemed relatively trustworthy. Maybe she wasn't on his side, and maybe she kept a few truths from him, but at least she was smart and wanted to keep things peaceful. In that regard, their ideals were the same. In any case, Abraham didn't trust Ramirez at all.
"We should all just chill until something interesting happens," he said. "Like our lovely guard suggested." Hopefully nothing interesting would happen.
Abraham read Ramirez's note and looked up at his cellmate. He sighed, and then looked back over at his guard, Raine. He wasn't leaving without Gaia, his swinub. In Noverus, at least, she was all he had. She was one of the only two women he ever trusted in his life, the other being his mother, and he was not about to betray that trust by bailing the second he got the opportunity.
He figured, though, that he had a better chance of seeing her again if he was free and got a chance to look around. Of course, that was assuming Ramirez actually had some sort of way to get out. Even if there was another member of the rebellion planning on busting them out, whoever it was still had to get past Omicron and Lucien, both of whom clearly had the resourcefulness and intelligence of their trainer.
Assuming all that, however, Abraham figured his best bet was, indeed, to get the hell out before some brutal low ranked officer decided to have his way with him, or whatever happened to be their likely ill conceived plan. This whole operation seemed really sketchy in the first place.
At last, he nodded to Ramirez, signifying his compliance with whatever he was scheming. He figured it was more along the lines of brute force than a well orchestrated jail break, given Ramirez's lack of grace, which wasn't exactly what Abraham would have preferred, but if it works, it works.
With a kind of aggravated look, Ramirez finally pulled out a hairpin from his teeth, having obtained it through the candy bars he had received. He looked at Raine, hoping she wouldn't direct any questions or more statements to him. He simply drew on the floor, drawing up a map of the building they were being held in. He then drew a circle over a certain room and made an arrow pointing to it.
"Here's where you're gonna have to go," Ramirez hissed, almost to the point where he wasn't heard, "your Pokemon are in there so we'll stop there first. They feed us in about fifteen minutes, so we'll leave then."
Abraham sat back, relatively calm during Raine's and Thomas' intervention of Ramirez's plan. He was hardly invested anyway, and wasn't prepared to actually do much to break free. He was more just going along with his cell mate's plan. When the whole thing was quickly foiled, it didn't really bother him too much. Truth be told, he didn't expect to bust out in the first place.
She looked at him once Thomas left, with the most penetrating disappointment he'd seen since his mother. He didn't feel guilty, though. He thought it was cute that she wanted him to, but he didn't care about her and she didn't care about him. As long as they were on opposite sides of bars, they were enemies, and she was foolish to think otherwise. Things seemed hopeless, and she spoke to him. "You really think I'm stupid, don't you."
"No," he said, still seated against the wall. "Truth be told, the whole thing was this guy's plan. Trust me, if it was my plan, you'd probably be walking us out of here yourself. My plan, by the way, wouldn't involve anything bad happening to Lucien and Omicron." But he didn't have a plan. Well, he did at first, but she seemed completely immune to his seduction during their conversation. Beyond that, he had made himself fairly content just sitting in the cell until somebody decided to move him. "I still haven't gotten to eat, by the way, seeing as how Big Poppa ate my candy bar. I'm willing to wait until the big boys get here, though."
"I'm guessing I'm getting moved to solitary," Ramirez joked, chuckling to himself. In all honesty, this was exactly what he was hoping for. If he was moved into solitary, then his plan can go on without a hitch. This, however, was a slim to none chance of happening anytime soon. He got up, stretching and cracking his neck, finally sitting down on his bed. Within a few moments, Ramirez had inspected his bed thoroughly before reaching underneath it. He apparently had a whole stash of candy bars underneath his bed. He kept reaching and feeling around for them, before not being able to find them. He crawled underneath the bed, soon continuing his search for his secret stash of candy.
----------------------
Raine responded to neither response, merely watched through the bars with a tired, contemplative expression. The minutes felt like they were passing by slower than cold molasses through a strainer; all she wanted was for the reinforcements to get here, to aid her in containing two, desperate and deliberate men from doing something stupid. Even now, for the life of her, she couldn't understand why such a seemingly articulate prison cell had dirt floors, but that was something she had been anticipating from the time she first laid eyes on the cell: a dig-out. She would spare no expense at keeping these two in their cell, even if it meant putting them completely out of capacity, if only for a while.
Her eyes narrowed as she saw Ramirez start digging under his bed. "Not again..." she thought to herself, and as she saw his two feet wriggling out from underneath the cot, she didn't even bother to stand. "Omicron." she called, and the happy looking Mareep came trotting over in his typical fashion. "Do me a favor, and prepare to paralyze this guy. This is getting to be ridiculous." she said in a low tone, pointing over to the wiggling feet. Omicron followed her finger with his gaze, and it's woolen coat practically crackled with an affirmative response. Omicron had the Static ability, which meant that any creature that it came into contact with had the chance to be paralyzed, including Raine. However, after some trial and error testing, Raine found that the amount of electricity that was crackling about in the lamb's wool had some connection to his mood or excitement level. Therefore, Raine typically didn't pet the Mareep unless it was extremely calm. Fortunately, Raine had read that as evolution occured, the amount of paralyzing static was controlled better by the higher evolution, thereby being less apt to paralyze it's own trainer.
"Ramirez, for the love of God, will you quit acting like a moron and wait until it's time for you to get moved?" she asked in a plaintive tone; instead of becoming more fearful, Raine was becoming increasingly annoyed. "Since it's in protocol to warn you before I do so, if you do not remove yourself from under that bed in 1.25 seconds and plant yourself into a corner, I'm going to send Omicron, my Mareep here, inside that cell to paralyze you."
She then directed her gaze over to the other man, who was calmly resting where he had been last. "Which means, if I've got to do that, you might want to move. No need for you to get the shock of your life." she said shortly. She didn't even know why she was warning him, he was a scoundrel, to put it lightly. However, her sense of duty was foremost, and her grudge would be set aside, until the chance occurred that they ever got into an unprofessional scenario, that is.
"What the," Ramirez stated, lifting his head up too quickly, knocking himself senseless. He fell through the hole he dug since he had been held there, and landed on his back, all according to plan. In a mole like fashion, he started moving through the hole, trying to find the nearest way out. Backwards would be a good start, he thought to himself, heading in the opposite direction he was facing. After about five minutes of dirt digging, Ramirez started to go upward. He kept digging and digging until he finally saw it; light. He clambered out of the hole, only to be met by a Magma guard.
"What are you doing," The guard asked him.
"Sightseeing," Ramirez answered, just as cocky as usual. With a fist smacking him in his temple, Ramirez was rendered unconscious, which was the only time he was quiet. A rather large man walked over to them both, picking up Ramirez and throwing him onto his shoulder.
"He has to just make this easier for himself and wait," the smaller guard stated, grabbing his hand in pain. "Him trying to escape was convincing, but it's still uncalled for."
"True," the larger guard responded, "but he wants no suspicions as to where his loyalty lies. He wants everyone to believe he's an enemy so he can prove them wrong." The smaller guard scoffed, almost not believing the larger man, but knowing it was true, he simply nodded. Escorting both Ramirez and the smaller guard, the larger guard made it to the prison cell holding Abraham. He looked at Raine, rather upset, dropping Ramirez onto the floor.
"This belongs to you, right," the smaller guard asked, pulling out a pad and a pencil, scribbling something on the pad.
------------------
Finally, it was briefing time. Richie, Katt, and Violet, standing in a row, prepared themselves to hear of this dangerous mission that awaited them within the hour.
Raine watched Ramirez' feet disappear under the bed, but instead of getting upset, she merely watched his feet disappear, and turned her attention towards watching the door. As the Magma guards brought the unconscious Ramirez back inside, Raine smiled towards the two. "Good work, guys. I'm glad you got here in time." she stated coolly. As she looked at the limp Ramirez on the ground, she stopped the larger man before he closed the door. "One moment, please." she said, escorting both Lucien and Omicron into the cell.
"Lucien, make that hole hot, and sniff for any other holes. Omicron, paralyze that bastard while he's unconscious." she directed, getting a confirming "'Dour!" and "Ma-REEP!". As Lucien began to scout, Omicron became focused. By the way his wool was crackling, he had been preparing his Static ability, ever since Raine had instructed him to do so. As though seeking out the perfect place to strike, Omicron's nose neared different areas, before a small flash caught her eye. A series of sparkling cracks met her ears, and it seemed that Omicron had efficiently paralyzed the man, though she would have no way to tell until he woke up.
Lucien had finished his scouting, and was now puffing flames through the hole. Flames licked the outside wall where Ramirez had emerged, and the smoke blew away harmlessly outside, not flowing back inside the cell. The Houndour continued puffing, until Raine whistled over to him. Raine peered inside; the heat inside was shimmering, and rocks and spare roots were smoldering and glowing with the heat, as well as what looked like a large pile of candy bars. "Fill it up, please." she asked her two poke'mon, and they both began the tedious task of filling up the hole and packing it, Lucien making sure every level was secure as possible by blasting it with a burst of flame.
Raine unlocked the door from the inside, reaching through the bars, noticing that the smaller guard was still writing on his little pad. Her brow furrowed. "Say, that isn't anything against me, is it? You can ask Thomas, I've been working my...butt off to keep this guy in line." she said warily, putting her shoulders back defensively. The smaller guard looked up at her and smiled, shaking his head. "Nah, it's just one more thing to add to his report. I'm surprised you kept him quiet this long; the last guard was only able to keep him from trying something when he was asleep." he stated calmly, offering a reassuring smile to Raine, who still had a look of doubt upon her features.
"Here, see?" he said, showing her the pad and what he had written. It coincided with what he had said, and she smiled sheepishly, her actual shyness coming to light again. These two guards actually seemed to have a modicum of intelligence, and that made her lips seal shut like they were born that way. "Don't worry, hon. You're doing fine. Just keep up what you're doing, and we'll keep up like we're doing, alright?" he said with a reassuring smile, patting her on the shoulder.
Raine nodded, and looked inside the door of the cell to see Omicron and Lucien staring up at her expectantly. Opening the door slightly, she let them out so they could be by her side once again, and she smiled as Omicron immediately began grooming the dirt out of his wool, Lucien looking completely fine with being covered with mud and dirt. She locked the cell door once again, turning her head to the limp Ramirez, shaking her head sadly. Something was up with this fellow; all she could fathom was that he was really as stupid as she had first decided, or he was hiding something. At this point, she could safely figure that it was a little bit of both.
Abraham went with his better judgment as he watched Ramirez crawling under his suspiciously deep bed. It almost seemed pathetic how hard this guy was trying, but Abraham was done with all these escape attempts. He was willing to accept whatever beating was coming his way and just hope it didn't kill him.
This kid, though, Ramirez, was something else. When Raine, as expected, yelled at him to get out from under his bed, he disappeared altogether. "I didn't do it," Abraham put his hands in the air, a look of boredom on his face. He watched as Raine's face exhibited frustration rather than anger or confusion. She turned her head to the door and, as she expected, some men walked in with Ramirez's body. Abraham just rolled his eyes. He was a little relieved, in fact, when Raine decided to paralyze the guy with Omicron. Even though that mareep shocked him a little bit earlier, he really liked its spunk.
The two guards seemed a little more capable than Thomas, and that left Abraham wondering if these were the fabled reinforcements. When they left, however, he began to wonder if reinforcements were even coming at all. "You think we're worth it?" he decided to ask Raine now that his cell mate was physically paralyzed and silenced. "They're gonna send reinforcements to help you guard a cell?" He looked to his left, over at Ramirez's body and shook his head. "We're a loser and a dumbass," talking about himself and Ramirez respectively, "Probably a reason they only assigned one guard on us at a time."
"Look, for whatever it's worth," he began, not moving from his seated position against the wall, "I'm sorry." He knew she wouldn't believe him, but maybe it would eventually come to mean something.
Raine looked at the other man in the cell, namely, the one who was not in convulsions. As he spoke, she merely blinked and nodded, like any patient, polite person would do. As he mentioned the whole 'loser' and 'dumbass' part, she couldn't stifle the smirk upon her lips. She quickly interrupted him to say "By the way you're behaving, you'd have to be extremely talented actors to make me think otherwise."
However, when he said that he was sorry, Raine didn't say anything for a moment. The voice sounded tired, but sincere...and yet, it had sounded much the same when they had been talking during Ramirez' slumber. She paused to ponder this conundrum, darting her eyes away from him for a moment. Finally, they rose back to his gaze, and with a sour look on her face, she muttered "I wish I could believe you." It may have sounded sarcastic to the man, but in truth, she had meant it the way that it had come out. Talking with the nameless man had been the first real conversation she had ever really gotten a response out of, considering that Lucien and Omicron never really had much to say, and when they did, they always said the same thing.
It was at this point that the trembling Ramirez stuttered out something that was hardly intelligible. She managed to make out the word "healed" through his chattering teeth, and no smirk showed on Raven's face as she said "No. I warned you." The sight of anyone in pain greatly disturbed Raine, but it was a measure that had to be taken. Raine was far too small to stop the larger man, so the only choice was to incapacitate him, and there was no way that she was going to put her own life at risk to try and handcuff the fellow to the plumbing. He literally could have thrown her.
Finding herself unable to look at Ramirez anymore, Raine sat back down in her chair, exhaling a large sigh. For a first day, this had been quite the doozy. First, she got oggled by a guard whom she suspected had gotten the majority of his knowledge from a gnat, another guard who was more interested in playing with one-eyed willy than actually doing his job, having her first real conversation with one of the men she was guarding, only to find herself regretting the conversation, 2 foiled escape attempts that were made through candy bars, and now, the said escapee was convulsing on the floor in a manner that Raine could not bear to observe.
Instead, she took out her ID card, fingering over the various bumps and studying different aspects of the card which proved that it was legitimate, some of which couldn't easily be created. Some of which only Magma higher-ups could instill, such as the signature, which held at a certain angle in the light, turned from black, to a metallic blue. Only the Magma executives owned such pens, and their signatures were not easily replicated. It was a very sophistacted system, really.
Putting her ID back into her pocket, she looked into the cell. Not much had changed. Even Lucien and Omicron, while still awake, were laying protectively at her feet. Murmuring soft words of encouragement to them, she looked upwards, towards the crude light that was installed in the ceiling, and listening to the hypnotizing ticking of a nearby clock.
Time could not move fast enough. Raine was ready for this to be over.
Raine had barely heard Thomas' call, before she found herself rising from her seat upon the entrance of two people dressed in Magma gear. Clearly, though, by the way they withdrew their poke'mon and prepared to attack, they were not the friendly sort. An angry look fell on her face, and with a soft stomp of her foot, she murmured "...Oooh, that does it. Lucien, Omicron! Alert!"
Both were already on edge with the recent events, so when she called out the command, they both stood on edge, snarling and sparkling respectively. As she surveyed the situation, she vaguely heard Abraham wish her luck. She wasn't sure if she heard sarcasm in his voice, but at the moment, she didn't care. The two "Magma" had procured a Riolu and a Rhyhorn, two very strong poke'mon, indeed. Though the Rhyhorn didn't seem to be as big as she had read about, and exorted a sort of youthful spunk, she knew not to take the rocky poke'mon for granted. It's sheer size alone could do serious damage to either of her poke'mon. As for the Riolu, Raine was simply surprised to see one of those in real life. They were really rare. However, Raine had to formulate a game plan, and soon.
"Omicron! Growl!" she commanded towards the Rhydon, and as the big beast seemed to succumb to the sheepish...well, sheep, Raine turned her direction towards Lucien, who was eager to go. "Lucien! Smog!" she directed, covering her face as the little Poke'mon belched forth a cloud of poisonous gasses towards the Riolu. The predicted wheezing and coughing was heard, and Raven smirked. Maybe things wouldn't be so bad after all.
"Ryu! Quick Attack the Mareep!" she heard through the cloud, and out of the cloud came a perfectly healthy Riolu, a little shaken, but not stirred. As the Riolu slammed into the little sheep, Raine winced as she heard the panicky bleat. However, the Riolu did not make the same quick retreat as Raine had expected. That's when Raine remembered: Static. The Riolu, shaking and shivering on the floor, was Paralyzed. Raine looked over to Omicron, who was still reeling from the attack, slightly, and she called "You okay?" over to the shaky sheep. A "Reep! Mareep!" was the affirmative response. However, in her focus upon the Mareep, Raine had forgotten one thing.
"Storm! Horn Attack the Houndour!" she heard a female voice call, and through the waning cloud, Raine saw the rocky beast headed straight towards Lucien. "Lucien! Dodge it!" she attempted to call out, but it was too late. The Rhyhorn slammed into the puppy, and he was pummelled into the wall with a terrible yelp. Raine's face blanched. As the Rhyhorn returned to it's owner, Raine scampered over to her friend. "Lucien...? Lucien!!" she called, but the Houndour was severely weakened by the blow. Tears filled her blue eyes, and she looked up at Abraham, as though he was supposed to do something.
...That's when she realized. She had to do something. Or at least try it. It could lose her her position as a Magma...but she couldn't let her Poke'mon get pummelled, -and- let Ramirez get away. "...Abraham." she said quaveringly. "...Please. Please help me."
She rose to her feet, knowing she didn't have much time. She grabbed his poke'balls out of the drawer, and with shaky hands, plucked out the key that also resided in the door. She slid the key inside, to where it was at his feet, and she pushed his Poke'balls through the bars. "...Please." she plead again, before turning back to Omicron and shouting "Omicron! Thundershock that Riolu!" at a feverish pitch, her face flush with the thrill of battle.
They had done far worse than annoying the shy girl. They had pissed her off.
Abraham watched intently as Raine made some odd combative decisions. He, himself, had very little battle experience but he tended to focus on offensive attacks rather than tricky status moves. He shrugged, though, as it seemed to be working out for her. That was, at least, until Storm the Rhyhorn decided to land a pretty strong hit on Lucien. Despite the Growl it took earlier, Lucien was hit hard.
Abraham winced as he saw the poor puppy fly across the room. Probably the last thing he expected, though, was that Raine, in desperation, decided to give him both his pokemon and the key to his release. He accepted the pokeballs and nodded, a confused look on his face as she turned back to the battle where her pokemon would probably get tossed around without his help. What was she doing? She was risking so much by allowing this. More importantly, what would he do? This was the perfect opportunity to escape. Magmas everywhere were preoccupied with some sort of battle, as evidenced by Thomas' loud yell minutes earlier. Raine had even given him the key to get out and his pokemon. He could. He very well could.
He reached down and picked up the key, looking at it for just a few more seconds. Sighing, he put it in his pocket and summoned Gaia, his swinub, outside of the bars. She immediately saw the battling around her and looked back up at her trainer, still behind bars. "I'm okay, girl," he nodded. "I need you to help out that tiny girl behind you." Gaia shuffled around to see Raine battling desperately 2 on 1. "Use Powder Snow on Rhyhorn!"
She nodded a cute little sneezy smile and blew out a tiny little stream of snow. While Storm was charging Lucien, it took the hit, and not very well either. "Raine, get Lucien out of here," Abraham suggested. "He could get really hurt." It was pretty unfortunate that Lucien had to be the one hit hard because its fire attacks sure would come in handy against Riolu. Oh well, though.
It was pretty clear that Omicron would take care of Ryu and Gaia would fight Storm. Well, it was clear to Abraham and Raine. Maybe not so much to Richie and violet, though. As Gaia blew another Powder Snow at Storm, Violet had her charge Omicron for another Horn Attack and Richie had Ryu charge Gaia from across the room with a Bullet Punch. Ryu's attack hit first and it hit hard, but it wasn't enough to finish off the little swinub. Rhyhorn's attack would do a lot of damage to Omicron, but it still took the hit from Gaia's Powder Snow. As the snow engulfed the rocky rhino it tripped all over its own feet, falling to and sliding on the ground. Its charge was cut short by its own lack of consciousness.
Violet cursed and summoned her next pokemon, Cinder the Charmander. "Go Cinder!" It seemed they wanted to focus on getting rid of Gaia first. Ryu was really weak by that point, but he had it in him for another Bullet Punch. That, on top of a fire move from Cinder, would easily finish him off. Well, Abraham was not about to have that.
"Good work, Gaia," he said, summoning her back into her pokeball. He sent out Double A, an Elekid, in her place. Now that Ryu's attacks weren't nearly as lethal, Abraham decided it would be a good idea to focus on Cinder, who was very healthy and not paralyzed like Ryu. "I think it would be a good idea to focus on the charmander," Abraham said. "Double A, Thundershock it!"
Raine looked down at Lucien. "You gonna' be okay?" she murmured, and to her great surprise, the Houndour shakily rose to his feet. As he was attempting to wag his tail, Raven looked at him curiously. She showed his poke'ball to him, and he barked a defiant "Dour!" and growled at it. Though he was weakened...it was obvious that he wanted to prove himself.
So she would let him.
"Lucien, Ember that Riolu, now!" she cried, and with the very last bit of energy it could muster, the Houndour sent a few blazing balls of flame towards the paralyzed creature. Oddly enough, it was paralyzed, and could not move! The Ember attack hit the twitching Riolu square in the face, and as it screeched in pain and fell to the floor, Lucien did as well. Two simultaneous flashes of light summoned the downed poke'mon back into safety, and as Richie swore violently, Raine gave Lucien's poke'ball a quick kiss, before clipping it back to her belt. Omicron stood at the ready, hopping violently in place. Raine smiled at his enthusiasm.
Richie summoned forth a Growlithe, and now, there were two fire-types on the field of battle. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, considering that Raine didn't doubt the skill of Omicron, and that Elekid, apparently named Double-A, was handling himself quite well. However, Omicron had been hit once, meaning he wasn't at full capacity. Raine could only hope that Abraham's poke'mon were up to the challenge.
When Double-A's attack hit the charmander, Raine smiled. "Good work!" she yelled, to both the poke'mon and the man who's name she didn't know. In fact, that sounded like a good idea. "Omicron, Thundershock the Growlithe!" The attack hit, and the Growlithe got thrown back a bit, but quickly hopped forward again, a little stunned, but still in the game. However, by the look on Richie's face, he was getting desperate.
Raine was not ready for the move that came next.
"Spunky, Flamethrower it!"
As the little Growlithe began to glow, Raine shouted "Omicron, take cover!" The Mareep looked around swiftly, and chose the desk to hide under. Raine dove out of the way as the hot stream of flame engulfed the wooden desk, lighting it aflame. Raine looked at the desk in horror. "No..." she whispered, and all she could think of was how many good memories she had had with the little sheep. However, as the desk began to crumble, the little Mareep sprinted out, it's wool coated with soot, ash, and charred, minimally. "Omicron!" she cried, and the little Mareep bounded into her arms, warm to the touch, shaking, but generally unharmed. As she held the sheep close, she didn't mind the little shocks of energy that the nervous creature gave her, she was simply glad that Omicron was okay. From what Raven could tell, Omicron had hidden, instead of in the little cove where the chair usually sat, inside of the open part behind where the drawers slid in, allowing the flame to miss him completely. The time it took to burn through the wood around the drawer gave the little fellow an added time to escape. This was the only explanation as to why the Mareep wasn't severely burned...or alive at all.
As Raine looked toward the Growlithe, she saw that it was about ready to collapse. The strain on the young poke'mon had been great, but this allowed a very angry Omicron to exact his revenge. Raine released Omicron onto the ground, and still seated against the wall, trying to catch her breath, she cried "Omicron! Finish it with Thundershock!"
So, he did. The sheep was singed and...as any OCD clean-freak would be, he was pissed off beyond all belief. A loud bleat filled the room as a very powerful Thundershock hit the weakened Growlithe. The puppy fell to the ground in a heap, it's paws smouldering from where it had been grounded. Richie swore once again, and called the poke'mon back, fingering at his last poke'ball warily, a look of concern on his face.
Meanwhile, the Charmander seemed to enjoy the heat that resonated from the burning desk, and launched an Ember attack towards Double-A. Raine hoped that the little Elekid was as quick as he was powerful; it was already too damn hot in the room.
Abraham was relieved to see Omicron escape from the burning desk relatively unscathed. In his brief experiences with the electric sheep (who shocked him earlier, I might add), he thought it was a pretty adorable pokemon. In fact, he went ahead and smiled when it finished off Spunky.
Richie's final pokemon was a Totodile, which was particularly unfortunate for him considering he was up against two electric pokemon. While Double A and Cinder were previously battling it out, Abraham saw that it was time they teamed up to finish this Totodile before it did any real damage. From there, they could just focus on Violet's pokemon.
"Raine!" he shouted. "Double Thundershock on the Totodile?"
She nodded and commanded Omicron to Thundershock just as Double A did. Though their target was initially Totodile, their electric charges had some scatter effect. Though their electric shocks were fairly precise, each of them was glowing with a powerful electric charge. As they stood next to each other, these electric charges were feeding each other and strengthening the power of both Thundershocks. The room lit up and became too bright to see clearly. Totodile was pretty immediately out of commission, but the Thundershock continued, almost uncontrollably. Both Double A and Omicron were surging with an incredible amount of power.
The power was so much, in fact, that the lightning independently sought out a new target to absorb the energy. It jumped straight from Totodile to Cinder, who was effectively blinded by the light previously. Once the lightning hit him, he screamed out in pain. Abraham winced at the poor little charmander. It wasn't out immediately, and was able to spew out a few embers at Double A, but its power paled in comparison to what seemed like quadruple power from a Thundershock. It took a notably short amount of time for poor little Cinder to finally fall over.
"Guys!" Abraham yelled to the pokemon, staying a fair distance away from the bars so he didn't get killed. "Guys, that's enough! He's down!" They seemed incapable of controlling this power. They were too weak to handle it. They were going to tire themselves out, or worse, get someone killed. He made a judgment call and called back Double A. In doing so, he cut off the continuous chain of electricity which was feeding into Omicron, causing a shock of reduced power to the little sheep. As the lightning disappeared almost instantaneously, Violet sent out Tikal, her final pokemon, a Dratini.
Abraham feared sending out either of his pokemon against it. For starters, Double A was probably falling apart after that episode and he didn't want to risk it happening again since Omicron was still out. Gaia, on the other hand, had taken a few pretty strong and effective hits. She was not in any position to take any more hits. As he decided which pokemon to send out, the battle continued.
As Raine watched the ensuing events, her petite, little shy voice uttered a "Shit!", to which a small hand instantly went up to her lips and a red flush to rise to her cheeks. She instantly reprimanded herself, however, because a battle was not the time to be watching one's language. In fact, as Omicron stumbled back from the unexpected and violent Thundershock attack, Raine was still seeing spots from the blinding light. Abraham had recalled Double-A, which left Omicron and a very healthy looking Dratini left on the field. A soft "Oh..." escaped Raine's lips. She didn't want to attack a Dratini. Dratini were beautiful and intelligent. Then again, as logic often did with the intelligent girl, a small voice in her mind told her: "You have to, or Omicron's going to get hurt, and all of this will have been for nothing. You have to do this."
However, Violet was not happy with how things were turning out. The slight moment that Raine had given her was an opportunity for the opposing trainer to send forth a directive. "Tikal! Use Wrap on that Mareep!"
With the cutest little sound you've ever heard, the little Dratini threw itself at Mareep and wrapped itself around the sheep, it's eyes squinting shut as it Wrapped Omicron. However, even though Omicron was wincing a bit with the constriction, it seemed to be more uncomfortable and annoyed than in pain. Just as Raine was about to issue a Thundershock attack, the little Dratini's eyes opened wide, and uttered a soft squeak of pain. As it's muscles began to tremble around Omicron, Raine placed her hand over her mouth.
The Mareep's Static had paralyzed the Dratini, while it was wrapped around it. Raine looked up to Violet apologetically, but Violet was looking incredulously at the situation. Raine turned her gaze to Omicron, who was looking back at his trainer like: "...So...what now? I've got this...thing on me."
Raine then looked to Abraham, and blinked once again. This confounded logic. This was just...weird. The whole damn day had been weird.
When Abraham saw the awkward sight of Omicron constricted by a paralyzed Dratini, he became even more lost as to what to do. Neither of the two, let's say hugging, pokemon were really able to do anything. Abraham shrugged and sent out Gaia, whose ice attack could put a solid hurtin' on Tikal. The only problem was, and Gaia seemed to noticed this too once she was out, Powder Snow is not a very precise attack. She would be incapable of just hitting Tikal without hurting Omicron, who she was able to recognize as an ally.
Abraham shrugged at Raine. "What, uh," he began, but she cut him off.
"Dratini has Shed Skin!" she remembered out loud. "Wait for it to shed its paralysis and then hit it."
Abraham nodded. It was a sound plan. Once Tikal's paralysis wore off, as Shed Skin allowed it to do, it would be able to move again and pull away from Omicron. They waited a few turns, Richie and Violet awkwardly standing by. Finally, they saw the little dragon shed off its paralyzed skin. It was fresh again. The only problem was, it was still in the middle of Wrap. Thanks to the extra static from Double A, Omicron's ability was almost a certainty. Tikal was, once again, paralyzed. Everyone in the room sighed.
"Screw it," Abraham said. "Omicron will be fine. Do you mind if I just-"
"It's fine," she nodded.
"Gaia, go ahead and Powder Snow. Try to just hit the Dratini."
She tried. She tried so hard, I wanted to give her a little medal for how hard she tried. But I didn't have one. Also, I'm a narrator who doesn't actually exist in the context of the story. It wouldn't make any sense for me to give her a medal. But mostly, it's the "I didn't have one" thing. Anyway, the point is, even though she tried, Omicron still took a little bit of snowy damage. Nothing, however, compared to Tikal, who was also weak to ice. The wind which accompanied the snow was enough to blow the little dratini off Omicron. The wind, also, was enough to freeze the little sheep solid.
Tikal was down and Omicron was basically out too. That left a very weak Lucien and both of Abraham's pokemon, both of whom had taken a fair amount of damage. Abraham went ahead and cleared his throat when there was silence. "Uhh, sorry about that, Raine."
Raine averted her gaze sheepishly as the powder snow attack hit, but as one of her blue eyes opened to see the damage, a soft whimper escaped the pout on her lips. Omicron was frozen, his face still in the expression it had been in when the attack had hit, a sort of knowing grimace. Without any hesitation, Raine recalled the poke'mon, leaving her standing there looking at Violet and Richie. Her gaze went to her impromptu battle companion, then back to the two, who were looking at each other as though trying to discover what to do next.
Raine cleared her throat, and with a shaking, cracking and petite voice, she pointed a finger at them warily, like a mother scolding a five year old. "You're both under arrest for attempting to free a Magma captive!" Richie and Violet looked at each other warily, and as if the whole thing had been coordinated ahead of time, Wilson and Violet went sprinting by the open doorway, shouting "GO, GO, GO!", with Thomas and a very angry looking Garchomp in tow. The two in front of Raine looked at each other once again, and as Richie waved a small goodbye towards her, Raine barely had the time to take a step toward them before they bolted out the door. "W-Wait! You're under arrest!" the tiny girl called after them, reaching a hand out, as though that would do anything.
"...Please?" she whispered softly, and she slowly reached up and lowered her hood, her thick black mane cascading around her face. They had gotten away. She didn't cry, but a soft pout rested on her pink lips. This just wasn't fair...nothing had happened to the lazy guard before her, and here she comes in, prepared to do a great and simple job, and everything goes to heck. Helplessly, she turned to look at the smoldering remains of her desk, and then up to Abraham. "Thank you." she whispered softly, barely loud enough to hear, before she slowly turned, and sat cross-legged on the dirt ground, in front of where desk had been.
Her head rested in her palms, and her elbows on her knees. She stared blankly ahead of her. Soon, the executives would be here, and she would be interviewed, and her job quickly terminated. Hopefully it would be short and sweet, and she wouldn't be reprimanded too harshly. However, as she looked at Abraham, she found herself contemplating what she would have done without his aid. Maybe, she could do one good thing today...and see if she could get him out of there.
Soon enough, two big men in expensive suits followed by a shorter woman entered the small area. Thomas stood behind them, looking tired and sweaty but generally in good health. "Grunt Raine Vega?" the bigger of the two men said gruffly, taking off his sunglasses and surveying the damage. Raine slowly clamored to her feet, her muscles stiff. She offered a weak salute, and dipped her head. "Yes, sir." her tiny voice rang out, her eyes pointed towards the ground.
The man looked around and shook his head, a look of dismay on his face. "Looks like you've had...quite a day, Miss Vega." Raine's head fell lower submissively, and she began to nibble on her lower lip, her hands behind her back. She nodded, her face red with embarrassment and a tingling feeling beginning to arise in her tear ducts. She nodded very slowly, not daring to look up at the chewing out she was about to receive.
Meandering over to the cell, the other of the two men looked inside, his eyes falling to Ramirez, still quaking on the floor. "What happened to him?" he said gruffly, and Raine winced. His voice was harsher than the other man's. "Paralyze..." she said so quietly that it could be barely be heard.
"What was that?" the man asked, turning towards Raine, and she winced again, almost chewing a hole through her lip. A single tear cascaded down her face, and in a slightly louder voice, she said "I-I paralyzed him, sir. With my Mareep's Static ability. So he wouldn't go anywhere else, sir." The man looked at her for a moment, and then back to his partner, who seemed to have a look of sympathy on his face for the small girl. "That's smart." the huskier of the two admitted with a shrug, and the other nodded. Raine looked up at the two, and with her tiny hand, wiped the tear away.
"Thomas here tells me you discovered an attempt to escape and through deductive reasoning, predicted somewhat the manner of the break-in. Is this correct?" the softer voiced man asked, and Raine dipped her head again. After mumbling something else unintelligible, the gruff-voiced man asked a rough "What?", and Raine ducked her head. She almost wished she had her hood back up.
"It...it was logic, sir. Only a dullard would have missed those signals, sir. It was nothing special...just logic, sir." she said quaveringly, digging her toe into the dirt.
The two men looked at her incredulously, and there was an awkward silence. However, the silence was broken as she heard a soft chuckle. The chuckle grew into laughter, and Raine lifted her head to find both men laughing heartily, and even the woman behind her (Raine assumed she was a secretary, since she had been taking notes the whole time) was chuckling. The huskier man clapped his associate on the shoulder and motioned towards Raine. Her head fell again, and her bottom lip began to quiver. They were making fun of her. She deserved it. She had done miserably on her first day.
The laughter subsided, and the softer voiced man cleared his throat. "Well, Raine...hey, wait a minute. Why are you crying?" his voice switched from jovial to slight concern in a snap. Raine lifted her tiny paw to her eyes, and with a soft whimper, said "...Because you're making fun of me. I know I did badly, but you don't have to jest at my failure."
The man blinked at her. "We weren't making fun of you. This is...a near impossible situation for you to overcome. You're, what, 5-foot-nothing, and managed to keep two prisoners in a cell, while staying calm and making decisions that makes us glad to have you around, kid. It's just...you're so little!" he said with a chuckle, motioning at her. "I mean, look at you."
Raine blushed, and reached up a hand, twirling a lock of raven hair around her finger. "But, those Rebellion members...they got away." she murmured, looking at the two men out of the corner of her eye, still not wanting to tilt her head that far back to look them in the eye. "And...I broke protocol."
The man's smile wavered, and the gruff man stepped toward her. "Meaning...?" he asked dangerously, all good-will being sucked out of the room.
Raine teared up once again, and her head motioned to the prisoner whose name she did not know. "I...I couldn't defeat the two of them on my own. I gave this prisoner his poke'mon so he could aid me. It was...illogical. However, to keep myself safe and at least one prisoner intact, I had to give luck a chance. I would not have succeeded without his aid."
All eyes turned to the man in the cell who wasn't shaking violently, and then back to Raine. "How did you know he wouldn't turn on you?" the softer voiced executive asked curiously. Raine simply shrugged, averting her gaze to the hole in the dirt her toe had dug. "I didn't." she said simply, awaiting the worst. The silence filled the room once again, and Raine sighed inwardly. Here it came. The two men talked between themselves, and as the huskier looking man went to talk to the man who had helped her. She hoped he wasn't going to get in more trouble.
"We have decided..." he began, and Raine, for the first time, looked up at him. "...that despite the broken protocol, you have made appropriate decisions regarding your current job description. Your job description was to watch one prisoner for the day, and despite a worst-case scenario occurring, you fulfilled your job description and more. Therefore, you will be receiving a commendation for your efforts today. You did well."
Raine blanched, and her mouth fell open. She...wasn't in trouble? She was getting rewarded? She wasn't getting fired? This immense cluster of surprise and shock allowed her to stare quite dumbly at the large man. He smiled at her warmly, which was not how she expected a Magma executive to act in such a way. Maybe she reminded him of a child, or his daughter. He chuckled and saluted her. "Dismissed, Miss Vega. You deserve a break." Raine uttered a quiet thank you, and scampered out of the room without looking at the other man once, her face flushed and tears cascading down her face in joy.
The day was over. And she wasn't fired. It was a good day. Terrifying, but good. First stop...poke'center. Lucien and Omicron deserved a luxury meal this night.
And she needed a nap.
Abraham recalled Gaia back into her pokeball and watched disheartened as Raine hopelessly chased Richie and Violet. He let his fingers feel over the lump in his left pocket where the cell key was. As Raine burred her face in her hands, he quietly slipped his left hand inside the pocket. He let his index finger nudge its way inside the key ring and even went so far as to lift it up a little bit.
He sighed, though, when he looked back up at her. She look so sad. And so...Adorable? Yeah. Yeah, adorable. "Stop it," he said to himself in his head. "Stop looking at her. Just unlock the door and leave. What's she gonna do? Her pokemon are weak. Hell, one's frozen. Why are you letting go of the keys? Stop it. Stop doing that. You can leave. You can walk out of here right now and avoid whatever punishment these assholes had in store for you. Oh, so you're not gonna do that? You're just gonna take it? For her? She's using you. She's manipulating the hell out of you because she knows you have the keys. She used you to save her pokemon by offering you yours, and now she's using you to save her ass by playing the sympathy card. But you're above that. You're a man. Go. Leave."
He sighed again and pulled the keys out of his pocket. He looked at them for a few seconds and threw them out of the bars on the floor next to Raine. He nodded at her and sat back down in his usual spot against the wall, looking down to make sure his suit was still in working order. Then, the guys walked in and seemed to be bullying the poor girl. He wanted to say something, but figured that would make things worse, not only for him, but for her. When she had gone, without saying goodbye, I might add, one of the men leaned over and picked up the key. He unlocked the door and looked Abraham up and down as the prisoner stood to his feet, both his pokeballs held in his hands.
"I imagine you're going to want to confiscate these," he shrugged holding out both of his hands, each of which held a pokeball.
"Why'd you help her?" he asked.
"It was the right thing to do?" Abraham shrugged.
He shook his head. "Nope," the same man smiled. "That wasn't it at all, was it?"
"Do my motives matter?" Abraham asked. "Are you gonna beat me up harder if I say I wanted to get in her pants?"
"You play your cards right, West, and I won't have to beat you up at all," the man smiled. "You wanna join Magma?"
"What?"
"Well, here's the way I see it. If I beat the living hell out of you, ain't no money gonna come out. My buddy, Jake, he still won't get paid. But maybe I can get you to do some work for us. We'll take some of your pay and give it to Jake. Pays a little better than waiting anyway."
"I'm not a criminal,"
"Yes you are," the man laughed. "You stole money. That's why you're here. Besides, Team Magma is not a crime syndicate. We're above the law. We make our own laws. You won't be a criminal according to us, and that's all that really maters in Noverus."
"Well, I don't really like Noverus," Abraham said, but also realized that he had nowhere left to go. "But I'll join. Just until Jake's paid off."
"Good," the man nodded. "I think I'm gonna pair you up with Miss Vega for your first assignment. You seem to already have a rapport with her, and I think it'll do the poor kid some good to have someone like you around."
"Someone like me?"
"A piece of crap douchebag," the man grinned. "Someone who knows the world and how to succeed in it, how to talk to people. She's one of the smartest damn people in Magma, but she's never gonna make it if she can't talk to anyone."
"Right," Abraham nodded. "Can't wait to start my new kindergarten teaching job. I've always wanted to teach kids how to eat spaghetti."
"I'm not gonna lie to you and tell you she already knows how," the man smiled.
"I'm honestly a little doubtful,"
"Go home, West," the man nodded. "We'll contact you tomorrow."
He nodded and walked freely out of the warehouse. He honestly did not think the day would end as well as it did. He wondered if he had Raine to thank for it. He shrugged though. She was still a woman, and so could not be trusted.
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