Instrutilus
Me am stalking bug
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Sope, I've been reading a "Double Nuzlocke" by one Milena Zarate Jeffery. I recommend it, it takes the Pokémon Special versions of the characters and develops them into their own little things.
Anyway, she recently held a competition for stories about it and I decided to enter it. It was only 3000 words, so a few details had to be sacrificed and the ending's a tad rushed, but eh, it'd not like I'd come back to this, I doubt it'll be popular enough to warrant a continuation. Anyway, now that they're available to the public, I figured I'd post it on here so you can see how horrible my writing style is. Hopefully it draws a bit of attention toward her nuzlocke, I think it's pretty good and she's a really nice person to chat with.
~Note: the story has MangaQuestShipping and SoulSilverShipping hinting. Not because I care, but because the nuzlocke has hints toward it as well. So I request that those that aren't inclined toward such pairings don't cause hassle about it, either on here or toward Mii, as that's just rude and I trust you guys to be mature.
Also, for those that go and read the contest entry, I've edited it slightly. Just correcting a few errors and removing an f-bomb drop, nothing important but just warning anyone who goes looking to see the original.
Anyway. -ahem-
“Dammit!” he decried, checking the side of his head for blood as he kept up his pace. Finding none, he turned to his partner and called over “‘the hell d’we do this time?!”
His query was met with a flat glare from crystal blue eyes, which would probably draw sweat were the running not already accomplishing that. An ass-kicking would probably commence once they were in the relative safety of their abode. Instead, he opted to keep his focus on the task at hand and began to rummage around his clothes. He noted his absent jacket and debated turning around and going back for it, a debate swiftly finished by a steel blade in the tree as he ran past, and merely checked the pockets of his camo cargo trousers.
“AHA!” He declared, pulling out a small device with 6 buttons on it attached to a key-chain and began pressing each. A loud alarm began to echo around the jungle at the first one, growing louder as they traveled toward it, while the second one did nothing noticeable. The third, he’d not find out as the remote was promptly snatched in a blur of blue hair and white jacket as his comrade ran over his path and took the remote into her white gloved left hand.
“Honestly, we’ve had this thing for 4 years! You should have learned this by now!”
He grumbled at her reprimand, but left her to the device. The woman pressed the first button again with her ungloved right, silencing the now deafening alarm, and then the fifth to the sound of a metallic groan. The two ran faster at the noise as the woman shoved the device into the lower pocket of her dark blue long shorts and leapt into the large metal vehicle, before the woman came to a halt, turned to a panel on the side and slammed the button. The man, meanwhile, continued into the bowels and leapt into a seat in front of a window and control panel, where he began pressing buttons.
The audible sound of turbines drawing in air reverberated throughout, and soon the landscape began to lower down. Further noises began echoing around the vessel, that of clangs as their pursuers had caught up and continued their quest to harm the two. The Nuzleaf turned around as it hovered in place, allowing the man to see a group of tribesmen waving the metal blades at them. He responded with a bite to the tip of his thumb before taking the flying craft over them and piloting it higher into the atmosphere.
He heard his partner drop into the seat next to him, but kept his focus on his work. Something displaying numbers dropping was the object of that focus, as he watched for the prime opportunity to push a switch. The apparent time came swift and the sound of the turbines died out as they shut down, replaced by a powerful blast that traveled up the vessel. The atmosphere left them, and soon an elliptical orbital path was their trajectory. He made sure to note the corrections he’d need to make later, before turning to his glaring partner, her arms folded in warning.
“So… Holon was nice.”
A punch to the head was her response. His pained cranium in hand, he looked to her again to see her in the same position, though now stood over him.
“Seriously, ‘the hell did I do?!”
“I don’t know, I was talking to the chief at the time. You wanna explain, Gold?”
A warning light caught his attention, drawing it away from the angry woman. He began checking readings and pressing the appropriate switches, before turning to reply once more.
“I don’t know either. All I know is that I was talking to a pretty girl one moment, the next I’m pinned to the floor with her over me and three guys watching. I wasn’t even flirting with her!... much…”
“...did she have a necklace on?”
“I think so,” he thought, as his focus hadn’t been on that particular area at the time. An audible sigh drew his attention from the console and toward his partner, “what? Was that significant, Crys?”
“Necklaces mean ‘eligible bachelorette’ Gold. And you got pinned, so that means you’re now the submissive partner in a marriage.”
The vessel did a frontal flip as RCS thrusters vented at the prompting of the control stick. A control stick that had been pushed forward by a man who had just found out he had been wed. He quickly regained control and turned his wide eyes back to Crystal.
“The hell!? Why didn’t you warn me about that?!”
“I did! During the briefing!”
He attempted to remember it. He truly did. But all he could come up with was his game of ball-in-a-cup as Crystal talked about some sort of tribal group that they were going to talk with and see about some rare creature that was rumoured to be on the planet. Such was the life of the pilot for an interplanetary creature catalogue and researcher. He turned his attention back to the woman, who was reaching up to check the console above and allowing her top to climb up her stomach slightly.
Well, at least the view was good.
“Sope,” Gold said, going back to busying himself on the vessel’s systems, “where do we go from here? Johto? Sinnoh?”
Crystal reached for a screen between them and pressed it. The screen flashed briefly as the program loaded up and displayed several star systems and lines between them, linking each to the other. Holon had one available link between it and Hoenn, another leading to quarantined planet of Kanto and, while they were available, the Sevii Moons that orbited the planet only had small settlements that weren’t really equipped for resupplies and refueling.
“Well, looks like it’s Hoenn, Gold,” she replied, choosing to ignore the resulting grumble. She knew why he didn’t want to go to Hoenn, but unfortunately they needed to refuel and skipping the world would merely leave them adrift in the Interplanetary Transit System. Knowing Gold, were it up to him he’d skip it anyway and let the momentum carry the Nuzleaf over to Sinnoh or Almia.
“Can’t we just-”
“No.”
More grumbling. He began to correct the orbit. It would take a while before they could burn and take off toward the ITS, but they’d rather take the time and not have their hull punctured by the many pieces of debris that existed in the void between worlds, thank you very much.
Knowing Gold could easily pilot the old bucket, Crystal took the opportunity to relax her chair and lay back. The adrenaline from the run had worn off, so now her side had decided to remind her of the pain it was in. She used all her willpower to not scratch at it, knowing it would alert Gold that it was hurting.
“It’s hurting again, isn’t it?”
Observant git.
“Yes…” Crystal sighed, “I suppose with the running, it was inevitable.”
She didn’t need to see him to know a guilty look had flashed across his face, something she echoed. She didn’t mean to make it sound like he was to blame, really it had all been a gross miscommunication. Gold hadn’t meant to draw the tribal woman’s affection, and Crystal had meant to double check that he had heard her warnings, but had neglected it in her excitement to start looking for the fabled Thunder Blade. Now they were pretty much forbidden from the planet they orbited.
The worrying part was that she was getting used to the feeling.
“...Oh man, I hope they don’t get the Imperial Courts in for this!” Gold exclaimed, a possibility he had apparently just noticed.
“I doubt it, unless they attack the Holon settlement. They saw us go the other way, so we should be fine.”
A yawn escaped her. Between the pain and the vibrations of the Nuzleaf when correcting its path or entering atmospheres, sleep was a rare commodity for her when they were travelling. That was something she was jealous of Gold for, his ability to sleep through the loudest of noises, probably from his preference to sleeping in the lower decks, even when on-world. An air horn couldn’t rouse him from a deep sleep, as she had experim- tried.
She felt the vibrations halt as the corrections were finished and with the peace of the lifeless void on the other side of the thin metal plating restored, she slowly began to drift off.
She awoke to more vibrations and turned her head to look at the monitor. Surprisingly, she had slept through most of the burn, the vibration cutting out near immediately after. Her attention turned to her companion, his focus off her and on the communication system, having a quiet but heated exchange with the person on the other end.
“No, I’m telling you, it was an accident. If you can contact the Imperial Court and let them know th- ...really Silver? You’re going to bring that up again?”
Ah, Silver. A mutual acquaintance, though to what extent with Gold she didn’t know. Every time she asked, he’d clam up and begin his rounds early, which was both frustrating and great as he considered whatever happened to be more hassle than getting the entire Nuzleaf maintained.
An irritated growl escaped Gold’s throat, quiet but enough to cause him to glance over at Crystal to make sure he hadn’t woken her. She closed her eyes and began measuring her breaths, feigning sleep to let him continue without worry. He stared at her a bit longer than she would have liked, but seemed to let it slide, turning back to the conversation.
“Look, I don’t care about that. Just let them know Crystal had nothing to do with it, okay?”
Ah, so that’s what he was doing, trying to make sure her research was safe. She supposed an interplanetary incident would somewhat hinder her studies, but it was something she was planning to deal with at port.
“Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Right, I’ve got to focus on this, so I’ve gotta go… eh? What do you mean Crystal’s awake?”
Crystal tensed. She wondered how she had been caught: there were no visuals to allow Silver to see her turn, and she hadn’t made enough sound to warrant his attention toward her. How did he…
“Whad’ya mean ‘she snores’?”
...Gold was right, he is a jerk.
The Nuzleaf departed from the large ring, one of many that prevented anything wandering into the ITS and the path of vessels travelling at high speeds. The wreckage of the Mauville Star that was contained by a similar field sat near the ring, serving as a memorial and a warning to those would would risk travelling outside the transit system.
Crystal looked to the planet below, a large planet made of equal parts water and land. The world of Hoenn, often said to be the birthplace of Man, something the residents of Sinnoh would dispute. Every planet has it’s own folklore of the way Man and Mon came about, and Hoenn had the tales of Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza, the gods that created the land, sea, air and all within it.
Crystal wasn’t the most religious person. She wouldn’t argue against it for the sake of it, she thought that anyone should be allowed to believe what they want and she merely didn’t. But Kanto hadn’t been the most religious world, even with Mew, who was not a god but an ancestor hidden on the rogue moon Utmost. Gold was a bit more so, having grown up in the more rural world of Johto and thus had been taught the tales of Ho-oh, the giver of life.
The Nuzleaf’s retrograde engines fired, slowing the ship down to prepare for atmospheric entry. Gold wasn’t focused on that, opting to keep watch on their communication, and quickly answered when the call came through.
“This is Tobi-nine-four, we have your approach noted, what is your current destination?”
The Tower systems were exactly as they sounded, existing on all worlds that were once under the Ransei Empire and were necessary to ensure any planet bound vessels didn’t end up stranded out in the wilderness of the worlds. They also guided the military’s weapons to any that were a threat. Really, they had probably been aware of the Nuzleaf as it exited the ITS.
“This is vessel Slay-Toby-Republic-Empire-twenty-eleven. Our destination is Slateport for resupplies and refuel. Transmitting all codes now.”
All standard stuff that Crystal ignored, and soon they received the go ahead to land at Slateport. Small licks of flame surrounded the Nuzleaf as the speed the vessel had been going unhindered in the vacuum soon found resistance in the air. This didn’t concern either of the occupants, who idly watched as the flames grow slightly and eventually die down, giving way to the clouds and the ocean.
“So what’s the plan when we land? Mauville isn't too far off Slateport, could be a fun time?”
She turned a glare to the pilot. Mauville had casinos, and Gold would often leave for the day and turn up without any money from his ventures.
“Well, with that off the table, I suppose I’ll stick around and check the Nuzleaf. Dunno if any of the Skarmory feathers punctured her, do we?” Gold smiled nervously at her. A sigh let him know he wasn’t going to get hit and he turned to focus on the landing, the ocean horizon in front of them rising as they touched down and taxied to the Slateport docks.
“I think I’m just gonna check into the hotel and call Kotone. It’s been a long day and I need the rest before going to see Commodore Green.”
“Ah, ‘k then. I’ll see you tomorrow, then,”
“Have a good night, Gold.”
Crystal got up from her seat as Gold finished docking the Nuzleaf. She yawned as she disembarked and made toward a small hotel she usually enjoyed staying at. However, she could just tell tonight was going to be a restless, despite her intent otherwise.
Crystal sat on her bed and stared at her left arm. Her reflection stared right back.
With a sigh, she detached it for the evening, setting it to the side of her bed. She scratched the left side of her abdomen, right above the hip, one of the little surviving pieces of the left side of her abdomen that hadn’t required converting to cybernetics after five years ago.
She decided to ignore the line of thought. Instead, she made over to the portable computer she had set up and sent a call to her cousin. A young woman, with brown hair in a similar style to her own and crystal blue eyes, a sign to most of their relation, eventually came through.
“Hi cuz! How’d your trip go?” Crystal couldn’t help but give Kotone a sincere smile as the energy she emitted traveled over the connection.
“Well, other than Gold messing up with the tribe, just the same old. Lots of running and panicking.”
“Yeah, I heard. Silver’s out talking to Blue to see if they can get things smoothed over. But otherwise, nothing else happen? I’m surprised with how often you and Gold are al-”
“Stop right there, you,” Crystal warned, pointing at the screen, though not in a dangerous way but rather a familiar one, “we’re just workmates. And you know that guy irritates me most of the time, his only saving grace is that he’s a good pilot.”
“Awww… but he cares about you!” Kotone replied, with an expression Crystal could swear made her eyes twinkle. She replied with an unimpressed look of her own design.
“If he cared so much, he’d stop gambling away all his money like usual.”
“Gambling? But he doesn’t…”
That caught Crystals attention.
“He doesn’t what?” Kotone had her hands to her lips in a sign of having said too much. The younger cousin looked torn, as if internally debating between two different choices on how to respond. She eventually seemed to reach a conclusion before leaning into the screen as if that would offer more privacy.
“You didn’t hear this from me, but Silver says he’s never set foot in a gambling place in years.”
“Eh?!” Crystal reacted loudly, before calming herself, “but... he always disappears for hours and always loses what money he has…”
“I dunno about that, Crys. All I know is Silver saying he hasn’t gone to one in five years.”
A door opening noise behind Kotone immediately signalled to both girls the end of the chat.
“Welp, it’s been a good chat, Crystal, if short. Be sure to call tomorrow after you see the Commodore, we need to catch up more before you next head off!”
“Yeah,” Crystal replied dully as she processed the information she got, “I’ll chat tomorrow, Kotone. Love you.”
“Love you too, cuz!”
And with the final farewell of a short man with red hair’s bored drone of “what’re you do-”, the call shut down. Crystal was left to her thoughts: Gold hadn’t been in a casino in five years. But then where did five years worth of wages disappear to? Then the answer came and she turned to look at it. Her reflection looked back.
He had been there, five years ago. He had blamed himself five years ago. And in five years of expensive treatments and cybernetic replacements, she had not once received any request for payment from the various hospitals and surgeons she had visited.
She mentally punched herself on her head. How had she not noticed that she hadn’t been paying for these? Well, she didn’t really visit the banks often, preferring the wilds of the star systems, so she really wouldn’t notice if she had money more than she should. She should probably pay more attention to that.
Still, he really shouldn’t have done that. Considering how expensive the treatments were, she could imagine him taking on several odd jobs to make ends meet, which would probably take up his entire br-
“That jerk…” Crystal muttered with a tearful smile as she made her way to the bed. So much effort so she wouldn’t have to worry about the payments. She’d have to teach him a lesson about this tomorrow.
Not that she’d ever admit it, but as she climbed into bed and let her thought idle on the idiotic pilot, the pain in her side didn’t bother her much as she dozed off into the most comfortable sleep she’d had in years.
Anyway, she recently held a competition for stories about it and I decided to enter it. It was only 3000 words, so a few details had to be sacrificed and the ending's a tad rushed, but eh, it'd not like I'd come back to this, I doubt it'll be popular enough to warrant a continuation. Anyway, now that they're available to the public, I figured I'd post it on here so you can see how horrible my writing style is. Hopefully it draws a bit of attention toward her nuzlocke, I think it's pretty good and she's a really nice person to chat with.
~Note: the story has MangaQuestShipping and SoulSilverShipping hinting. Not because I care, but because the nuzlocke has hints toward it as well. So I request that those that aren't inclined toward such pairings don't cause hassle about it, either on here or toward Mii, as that's just rude and I trust you guys to be mature.
Also, for those that go and read the contest entry, I've edited it slightly. Just correcting a few errors and removing an f-bomb drop, nothing important but just warning anyone who goes looking to see the original.
Anyway. -ahem-
Stellar Workmates
Two figures darted through the overgrowth, weaving between foliage and avoiding long, metallic blades as they sliced through the air around them. One came particularly close, taking a few strands of black hair from the taller figure’s head. Golden eyes frowned as he saw the blade fly past his vision and prompted worry he had been hit.
“Dammit!” he decried, checking the side of his head for blood as he kept up his pace. Finding none, he turned to his partner and called over “‘the hell d’we do this time?!”
His query was met with a flat glare from crystal blue eyes, which would probably draw sweat were the running not already accomplishing that. An ass-kicking would probably commence once they were in the relative safety of their abode. Instead, he opted to keep his focus on the task at hand and began to rummage around his clothes. He noted his absent jacket and debated turning around and going back for it, a debate swiftly finished by a steel blade in the tree as he ran past, and merely checked the pockets of his camo cargo trousers.
“AHA!” He declared, pulling out a small device with 6 buttons on it attached to a key-chain and began pressing each. A loud alarm began to echo around the jungle at the first one, growing louder as they traveled toward it, while the second one did nothing noticeable. The third, he’d not find out as the remote was promptly snatched in a blur of blue hair and white jacket as his comrade ran over his path and took the remote into her white gloved left hand.
“Honestly, we’ve had this thing for 4 years! You should have learned this by now!”
He grumbled at her reprimand, but left her to the device. The woman pressed the first button again with her ungloved right, silencing the now deafening alarm, and then the fifth to the sound of a metallic groan. The two ran faster at the noise as the woman shoved the device into the lower pocket of her dark blue long shorts and leapt into the large metal vehicle, before the woman came to a halt, turned to a panel on the side and slammed the button. The man, meanwhile, continued into the bowels and leapt into a seat in front of a window and control panel, where he began pressing buttons.
The audible sound of turbines drawing in air reverberated throughout, and soon the landscape began to lower down. Further noises began echoing around the vessel, that of clangs as their pursuers had caught up and continued their quest to harm the two. The Nuzleaf turned around as it hovered in place, allowing the man to see a group of tribesmen waving the metal blades at them. He responded with a bite to the tip of his thumb before taking the flying craft over them and piloting it higher into the atmosphere.
He heard his partner drop into the seat next to him, but kept his focus on his work. Something displaying numbers dropping was the object of that focus, as he watched for the prime opportunity to push a switch. The apparent time came swift and the sound of the turbines died out as they shut down, replaced by a powerful blast that traveled up the vessel. The atmosphere left them, and soon an elliptical orbital path was their trajectory. He made sure to note the corrections he’d need to make later, before turning to his glaring partner, her arms folded in warning.
“So… Holon was nice.”
A punch to the head was her response. His pained cranium in hand, he looked to her again to see her in the same position, though now stood over him.
“Seriously, ‘the hell did I do?!”
“I don’t know, I was talking to the chief at the time. You wanna explain, Gold?”
A warning light caught his attention, drawing it away from the angry woman. He began checking readings and pressing the appropriate switches, before turning to reply once more.
“I don’t know either. All I know is that I was talking to a pretty girl one moment, the next I’m pinned to the floor with her over me and three guys watching. I wasn’t even flirting with her!... much…”
“...did she have a necklace on?”
“I think so,” he thought, as his focus hadn’t been on that particular area at the time. An audible sigh drew his attention from the console and toward his partner, “what? Was that significant, Crys?”
“Necklaces mean ‘eligible bachelorette’ Gold. And you got pinned, so that means you’re now the submissive partner in a marriage.”
The vessel did a frontal flip as RCS thrusters vented at the prompting of the control stick. A control stick that had been pushed forward by a man who had just found out he had been wed. He quickly regained control and turned his wide eyes back to Crystal.
“The hell!? Why didn’t you warn me about that?!”
“I did! During the briefing!”
He attempted to remember it. He truly did. But all he could come up with was his game of ball-in-a-cup as Crystal talked about some sort of tribal group that they were going to talk with and see about some rare creature that was rumoured to be on the planet. Such was the life of the pilot for an interplanetary creature catalogue and researcher. He turned his attention back to the woman, who was reaching up to check the console above and allowing her top to climb up her stomach slightly.
Well, at least the view was good.
“Sope,” Gold said, going back to busying himself on the vessel’s systems, “where do we go from here? Johto? Sinnoh?”
Crystal reached for a screen between them and pressed it. The screen flashed briefly as the program loaded up and displayed several star systems and lines between them, linking each to the other. Holon had one available link between it and Hoenn, another leading to quarantined planet of Kanto and, while they were available, the Sevii Moons that orbited the planet only had small settlements that weren’t really equipped for resupplies and refueling.
“Well, looks like it’s Hoenn, Gold,” she replied, choosing to ignore the resulting grumble. She knew why he didn’t want to go to Hoenn, but unfortunately they needed to refuel and skipping the world would merely leave them adrift in the Interplanetary Transit System. Knowing Gold, were it up to him he’d skip it anyway and let the momentum carry the Nuzleaf over to Sinnoh or Almia.
“Can’t we just-”
“No.”
More grumbling. He began to correct the orbit. It would take a while before they could burn and take off toward the ITS, but they’d rather take the time and not have their hull punctured by the many pieces of debris that existed in the void between worlds, thank you very much.
Knowing Gold could easily pilot the old bucket, Crystal took the opportunity to relax her chair and lay back. The adrenaline from the run had worn off, so now her side had decided to remind her of the pain it was in. She used all her willpower to not scratch at it, knowing it would alert Gold that it was hurting.
“It’s hurting again, isn’t it?”
Observant git.
“Yes…” Crystal sighed, “I suppose with the running, it was inevitable.”
She didn’t need to see him to know a guilty look had flashed across his face, something she echoed. She didn’t mean to make it sound like he was to blame, really it had all been a gross miscommunication. Gold hadn’t meant to draw the tribal woman’s affection, and Crystal had meant to double check that he had heard her warnings, but had neglected it in her excitement to start looking for the fabled Thunder Blade. Now they were pretty much forbidden from the planet they orbited.
The worrying part was that she was getting used to the feeling.
“...Oh man, I hope they don’t get the Imperial Courts in for this!” Gold exclaimed, a possibility he had apparently just noticed.
“I doubt it, unless they attack the Holon settlement. They saw us go the other way, so we should be fine.”
A yawn escaped her. Between the pain and the vibrations of the Nuzleaf when correcting its path or entering atmospheres, sleep was a rare commodity for her when they were travelling. That was something she was jealous of Gold for, his ability to sleep through the loudest of noises, probably from his preference to sleeping in the lower decks, even when on-world. An air horn couldn’t rouse him from a deep sleep, as she had experim- tried.
She felt the vibrations halt as the corrections were finished and with the peace of the lifeless void on the other side of the thin metal plating restored, she slowly began to drift off.
==========
She awoke to more vibrations and turned her head to look at the monitor. Surprisingly, she had slept through most of the burn, the vibration cutting out near immediately after. Her attention turned to her companion, his focus off her and on the communication system, having a quiet but heated exchange with the person on the other end.
“No, I’m telling you, it was an accident. If you can contact the Imperial Court and let them know th- ...really Silver? You’re going to bring that up again?”
Ah, Silver. A mutual acquaintance, though to what extent with Gold she didn’t know. Every time she asked, he’d clam up and begin his rounds early, which was both frustrating and great as he considered whatever happened to be more hassle than getting the entire Nuzleaf maintained.
An irritated growl escaped Gold’s throat, quiet but enough to cause him to glance over at Crystal to make sure he hadn’t woken her. She closed her eyes and began measuring her breaths, feigning sleep to let him continue without worry. He stared at her a bit longer than she would have liked, but seemed to let it slide, turning back to the conversation.
“Look, I don’t care about that. Just let them know Crystal had nothing to do with it, okay?”
Ah, so that’s what he was doing, trying to make sure her research was safe. She supposed an interplanetary incident would somewhat hinder her studies, but it was something she was planning to deal with at port.
“Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Right, I’ve got to focus on this, so I’ve gotta go… eh? What do you mean Crystal’s awake?”
Crystal tensed. She wondered how she had been caught: there were no visuals to allow Silver to see her turn, and she hadn’t made enough sound to warrant his attention toward her. How did he…
“Whad’ya mean ‘she snores’?”
...Gold was right, he is a jerk.
==========
The Nuzleaf departed from the large ring, one of many that prevented anything wandering into the ITS and the path of vessels travelling at high speeds. The wreckage of the Mauville Star that was contained by a similar field sat near the ring, serving as a memorial and a warning to those would would risk travelling outside the transit system.
Crystal looked to the planet below, a large planet made of equal parts water and land. The world of Hoenn, often said to be the birthplace of Man, something the residents of Sinnoh would dispute. Every planet has it’s own folklore of the way Man and Mon came about, and Hoenn had the tales of Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza, the gods that created the land, sea, air and all within it.
Crystal wasn’t the most religious person. She wouldn’t argue against it for the sake of it, she thought that anyone should be allowed to believe what they want and she merely didn’t. But Kanto hadn’t been the most religious world, even with Mew, who was not a god but an ancestor hidden on the rogue moon Utmost. Gold was a bit more so, having grown up in the more rural world of Johto and thus had been taught the tales of Ho-oh, the giver of life.
The Nuzleaf’s retrograde engines fired, slowing the ship down to prepare for atmospheric entry. Gold wasn’t focused on that, opting to keep watch on their communication, and quickly answered when the call came through.
“This is Tobi-nine-four, we have your approach noted, what is your current destination?”
The Tower systems were exactly as they sounded, existing on all worlds that were once under the Ransei Empire and were necessary to ensure any planet bound vessels didn’t end up stranded out in the wilderness of the worlds. They also guided the military’s weapons to any that were a threat. Really, they had probably been aware of the Nuzleaf as it exited the ITS.
“This is vessel Slay-Toby-Republic-Empire-twenty-eleven. Our destination is Slateport for resupplies and refuel. Transmitting all codes now.”
All standard stuff that Crystal ignored, and soon they received the go ahead to land at Slateport. Small licks of flame surrounded the Nuzleaf as the speed the vessel had been going unhindered in the vacuum soon found resistance in the air. This didn’t concern either of the occupants, who idly watched as the flames grow slightly and eventually die down, giving way to the clouds and the ocean.
“So what’s the plan when we land? Mauville isn't too far off Slateport, could be a fun time?”
She turned a glare to the pilot. Mauville had casinos, and Gold would often leave for the day and turn up without any money from his ventures.
“Well, with that off the table, I suppose I’ll stick around and check the Nuzleaf. Dunno if any of the Skarmory feathers punctured her, do we?” Gold smiled nervously at her. A sigh let him know he wasn’t going to get hit and he turned to focus on the landing, the ocean horizon in front of them rising as they touched down and taxied to the Slateport docks.
“I think I’m just gonna check into the hotel and call Kotone. It’s been a long day and I need the rest before going to see Commodore Green.”
“Ah, ‘k then. I’ll see you tomorrow, then,”
“Have a good night, Gold.”
Crystal got up from her seat as Gold finished docking the Nuzleaf. She yawned as she disembarked and made toward a small hotel she usually enjoyed staying at. However, she could just tell tonight was going to be a restless, despite her intent otherwise.
==========
Crystal sat on her bed and stared at her left arm. Her reflection stared right back.
With a sigh, she detached it for the evening, setting it to the side of her bed. She scratched the left side of her abdomen, right above the hip, one of the little surviving pieces of the left side of her abdomen that hadn’t required converting to cybernetics after five years ago.
She decided to ignore the line of thought. Instead, she made over to the portable computer she had set up and sent a call to her cousin. A young woman, with brown hair in a similar style to her own and crystal blue eyes, a sign to most of their relation, eventually came through.
“Hi cuz! How’d your trip go?” Crystal couldn’t help but give Kotone a sincere smile as the energy she emitted traveled over the connection.
“Well, other than Gold messing up with the tribe, just the same old. Lots of running and panicking.”
“Yeah, I heard. Silver’s out talking to Blue to see if they can get things smoothed over. But otherwise, nothing else happen? I’m surprised with how often you and Gold are al-”
“Stop right there, you,” Crystal warned, pointing at the screen, though not in a dangerous way but rather a familiar one, “we’re just workmates. And you know that guy irritates me most of the time, his only saving grace is that he’s a good pilot.”
“Awww… but he cares about you!” Kotone replied, with an expression Crystal could swear made her eyes twinkle. She replied with an unimpressed look of her own design.
“If he cared so much, he’d stop gambling away all his money like usual.”
“Gambling? But he doesn’t…”
That caught Crystals attention.
“He doesn’t what?” Kotone had her hands to her lips in a sign of having said too much. The younger cousin looked torn, as if internally debating between two different choices on how to respond. She eventually seemed to reach a conclusion before leaning into the screen as if that would offer more privacy.
“You didn’t hear this from me, but Silver says he’s never set foot in a gambling place in years.”
“Eh?!” Crystal reacted loudly, before calming herself, “but... he always disappears for hours and always loses what money he has…”
“I dunno about that, Crys. All I know is Silver saying he hasn’t gone to one in five years.”
A door opening noise behind Kotone immediately signalled to both girls the end of the chat.
“Welp, it’s been a good chat, Crystal, if short. Be sure to call tomorrow after you see the Commodore, we need to catch up more before you next head off!”
“Yeah,” Crystal replied dully as she processed the information she got, “I’ll chat tomorrow, Kotone. Love you.”
“Love you too, cuz!”
And with the final farewell of a short man with red hair’s bored drone of “what’re you do-”, the call shut down. Crystal was left to her thoughts: Gold hadn’t been in a casino in five years. But then where did five years worth of wages disappear to? Then the answer came and she turned to look at it. Her reflection looked back.
He had been there, five years ago. He had blamed himself five years ago. And in five years of expensive treatments and cybernetic replacements, she had not once received any request for payment from the various hospitals and surgeons she had visited.
She mentally punched herself on her head. How had she not noticed that she hadn’t been paying for these? Well, she didn’t really visit the banks often, preferring the wilds of the star systems, so she really wouldn’t notice if she had money more than she should. She should probably pay more attention to that.
Still, he really shouldn’t have done that. Considering how expensive the treatments were, she could imagine him taking on several odd jobs to make ends meet, which would probably take up his entire br-
“That jerk…” Crystal muttered with a tearful smile as she made her way to the bed. So much effort so she wouldn’t have to worry about the payments. She’d have to teach him a lesson about this tomorrow.
Not that she’d ever admit it, but as she climbed into bed and let her thought idle on the idiotic pilot, the pain in her side didn’t bother her much as she dozed off into the most comfortable sleep she’d had in years.
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