A Shadow, an Eon, and a Worm 31
Madison, assurances, and explanations
June 2nd, 2011. Thursday.
"Alright, so we're ready?"
Swarm adjusted her mask one more time, stretched to make sure that everything on her costume was sat right, and nodded. "Good to go."
"Shadow?"
"I'm fine, Eon." The Vulpix sighed, shaking herself out. "Trust me, I've recovered fine."
"Forgive me for worrying when it's only been five days, Madison is bigger than Canberra, and doing Canberra knocked you flat for nearly a day and a half." He said dryly, giving his second in command a slightly hard glare.
"Yeah, but that was because I was doing it mostly alone. I've got you this time, and they've got data that they can use to make it easier." Shadow shrugged, before reaching back with Extrasensory to adjust her bag. "And we've got more stuff this time, just in case, and time for breaks since there's less of a flight."
The glare became slightly harder. "Yes. And I whole-heartedly believe that you'll actually use that fact to rest, rather than keep binging through everything at high speed just because there's more people."
"Eon-"
"Shadow, I know you, remember?" He sighed himself, walking over to place a paw on her back. "Please remember to rest more than you did last time."
"I will, Eon." She nodded. "I've got the Leppa Berry cookies for if I need them, I'm carrying Yache Berries with me to keep my inner flame from going too cold, just in case, and there's actual food in the bag as well for the sake of that. I'll be absolutely fine, I promise, we'll both work together on it all and it'll be a-ok." Shadow smiled gently, waiting until Eon returned it to shake his paw from her shoulder and straighten. "And besides, this time we've got Swarm with us, so she can help keep an eye out as well."
"No problem." Swarm added, from where she was standing a little ways away. "It's not that much more work to focus on keeping track of Shadow as well as keeping an eye on the area around us, especially since I don't really need to pay that much attention to the area. The PRT and Dragon are going to have plenty of surveillance around to make sure you're both safe."
"Still, that's no reason to slack on personal attention." Eon reminded them both. "There's nothing to say that the PRT can't be compromised in some way in an attempt to take us out-"
"The only people dumb enough to do that would be the Fallen." Swarm interrupted. "No-one else is going to want to oppose a team saving Simurgh victims, at least not publicly and not when they're actually doing that. And it'd be difficult for them to infiltrate the PRT, I'd think? I mean, they've got to have some pretty good security, with all the work they do with Parahumans, so I don't see it being all that likely that they'd manage to get into the PRT enough to mess up security."
After a long moment of silence, Eon sighed, flicking his tails in a complicated pattern. "I suppose. But still, we want to keep an eye out. Too much complacency is a bad thing, after all."
"We know, Eon. But don't worry, I'm sure it'll be fine!" Shadow grinned, flicking her own tails in a far less complicated way, ending with them curled up in a ball behind her. "So, if we're all done being a worry-wort, should we get going?"
"If we've all got what we need, and we're all sure." Eon decided, beckoning them into line with a paw. Shadow promptly placed herself on his left, shaking herself out once again in a physical attempt at putting herself into her formal second in command mode, while Swarm dropped onto the right hand side a little behind the both of them again. They'd run through the different sorts of etiquette for positioning in Rescue Teams once again the night before, just in case, and since in this case it was more Shadow's mission than anything she and Eon were at equal to each other, with Swarm behind as third and guard.
In some ways she was also the scout, due to her powers, but since right now she was playing mainly as the guard, so that was where she was standing.
A few more bugs skittered over to her, mostly spiders from the weaving station, since they'd done most of their work over the last few days and now had enough silk to hand over to Parian for her to work with. "Ready and waiting."
"Then let's move out."
As the group started walking out of the Den, shielded by a wrapping of illusions, Swarm couldn't help but run spiders nervously up and down her hair, trying to work out the urge to fidget uncomfortably before they reached the public eye- and, more importantly, before they reached the PRT building. She didn't want to give the impression that she was nervous about this, no matter how much she was nervous; this was important, and making people remember that she wasn't much more than a kid wouldn't be particularly good for their reputation. Plus, this was... well, important. Not just to Team Inari but to everyone in the world. It was desperately important she didn't mess this up because of that.
"Stop worrying so loudly." Shadow said, glancing over her shoulder. Swarm startled. "It's lacing your scent." She added, before the bug user could ask. "And seriously, it'll be fine. Just keep an eye on the things in your range, put down threats if you find them- which I don't think you will- and trust that Dragon and the PRT are gonna have their over stuff about to keep an eye on things to make sure that nothing gets close enough to everything to actually need you to deal with things."
"Right, sure." Swarm nodded, letting out a long breath. "Right. Sorry, it's just..."
"Hey, we were all the same when we went out on our first proper out-of-town expedition. Didn't last all that long, admittedly, but heading out of town is always a bit nerve wracking." Eon turned back a little, giving her a smile. "It can be a bit difficult to get used to everything. But we're not actually going all that far, and aside from keeping watch you won't need to handle too much. You'll have plenty of time to get used to being out of city limits." He touched her leg gently with his tail. "Just do your best, Swarm. That's all we can ask."
She straightened, a little. "Sure thing, Eon!"
The flight to Madison was a lot shorter than the one to Canberra, but Shadow still used it to catch a quick nap anyway. She was still a bit tired from the first bout of healing, though she was trying not to show it. If Eon started worrying that she wasn't well enough to actually do everything, he'd try to cancel the entire thing until she was feeling better, and she didn't want that.
There were people in Madison that needed help, and they needed it a lot more than the people in Canberra had. Canberra had only been a Simurgh Zone for a few months, after all. The people in this city had been trapped there for years now, and there were even more places that were even older. Shadow didn't want to waste any time in trying to help free them.
As the craft started to land, she took a moment to wish that they weren't the only members of Team Inari here. In some ways, at the very beginning of everything on Earth Bet, it had been... nice. Like getting back to their roots, in some ways. Just Eon, the team leader, and Shadow, his second in command. Of course, Swarm was here too, and that was good too for sure. But it had been nice to only be them.
Now, though, with all of the stress going on with the Simurgh Containment Zones, the sudden and sharp showing a month ago of exactly how deadly their new world could be with the face-to-face with Leviathan, and even just the general overtone of everything that went on in Brockton Bay on a day to day basis... it made Shadow wish that they had the rest of their team there instead.
As much as it had been nice to get back to the feeling of the earliest days of Team Inari, where it was just the two of them and taking small missions- though she supposed she couldn't really call their early work on Bet small missions, since the first thing they'd done was fight the leader of one of the local gangs who was also a giant dragon- it had also brought back the memory of why they'd been so happy to add more Pokemon to the team in the first place.
Working as a small team was hard. It always was. It needed less resources, but that meant there were less resources to hand around. Less Pokemon to spread the load between. Fewer friends at your back when you were in trouble. Less you could do because three people could only ever be in a maximum of three places.
With a bigger team, it was harder to co-ordinate, but there was more to work with. The entire team could split up into groups, still have someone to watch their back, be more places all at once because there were more of them. There was someone to call to for support.
It was easy to miss the simpler times when you were a large group, run off your paws trying to keep track of all your subordinates. But that became easy to miss the second you didn't have those Pokemon watching your back and helping out.
Like right now. If the rest of Team Inari was here, or even just the rest of the main healing Pokemon, they could do so much more. They could work through the tents in Madison faster, each one taking a tent and splitting the load between them, or two at a time for the Pokemon that didn't know one Move but did know the other. Or they could split the containment zones between them instead, and reach out to more places at the same time to help more people across the world who had been trapped by the third Endbringer. More Pokemon means more resources, which means that they can do more to help. There's more to help.
Instead, it was just them. Her, and whatever Eon was able to do.
"Ready to go, Shadow?"
She shook her head, sharply, trying to dislodge the sudden case of melancholy that had drifted over her. It felt like that had been happening more and more lately, and she wasn't particularly fond of that. When she got home she ought to visit her family again... that always helped when she started to get brought down by all her missions.
"As always!"
The Ninetales gave her a strange look, as though he didn't quite buy what she was saying, but allowed it to slide as they all got into position and the Dragoncraft touched down and opened its doors.
This time around, Shadow barely paid attention to the people they were introduced to, just taking a note that it was another general, some PRT troops of some sort, someone who was apparently a Director, and a pair of flying Capes that would be spending the entire time in the air and looking out for trouble. She found that she could barely care about all of that, just wanting to get a start on healing people. The longer that they waited, the less they'd be able to get done during the day, possibly needing to actually stop and wait overnight to continue the next morning... or work through the night, if she could persuade Eon to let her.
And Swarm. And Dragon. And the entire rest of the people here...
She probably wasn't going to get that.
Shadow followed the two troopers that she was directed towards, turning back only for a moment to wave at Eon- with his own escort- and Swarm- standing next to Dragon with a large scent of nervousness lingering around her. She flashed a smile at the bug user for good measure, in an attempt to help with that, then hurried off after the two of them and towards the first tent of people.
Stepping inside, it was easy to tell that it was bigger than the ones they'd had in Canberra, and that because of that there was more people waiting for her. The ones closest were staring at the troopers and herself with undisguised curiosity and fear, which made Shadow take a deep breath and close her eyes.
Here we go.
"We're ready whenever you are, Shadow."
She nodded, taking another deep breath and holding it for a moment, preparing her Moves.
Let's go.
Swarm spent a lot of the first hour barely moving from her position. She'd been given somewhere to sit that would give her a good view of most of the earlier tents, as well as the area around them, and aside from giving them a nod of thanks, had outwardly done nothing but sit there.
In actual fact, she was constantly checking around with her bugs, making sure that no-one was getting too close to her team mates that might be considered suspicious. She had enough bugs everywhere she could stuff them that seeing out of their eyes was more a matter of focusing correctly than anything else; she just had to put herself in the right mindset to see. Anyone that was moving nearby got a careful looking at, and if she confirmed that they weren't wearing a PRT uniform she made a note of them with a few flies and followed their actions.
Perhaps she was being a little overcautious, and she was fairly sure that she was unnerving the people around her- given the way that they kept shooting her still form looks- but Swarm found that she didn't really care about that. The important thing was that she'd been trusted with a duty by her team mates, and she wanted to keep that.
If she did it all well enough, then that might make her dad more likely to let her join the other members of Inari on more out of town missions, even if those missions were only happening to the other containment zones around the world. Of course, she'd have to prove her worth to the PRT as well, but hopefully this mission would do that without needing more examples.
She didn't think that she would need to prove herself to Team Inari any more than she already had, which meant that it was only those two groups that she would need to deal with.
Oh, and Dragon. She should make sure that Dragon was okay with it, given that she was the one in charge of transportation. That was… quite important.
Swarm shifted, conscious of the fact that she had barely moved and knowing that it wouldn't help if she ended up too stiff to move if something happened, and was grateful for the fact that her mask concealed her smile when the PRT troopers around her startled at the abrupt change. Dragon didn't even twitch, to her slight surprise, only turning a little and directing her helmet as if concerned.
"Are you all right, swarm?" She asked, the faintest bit of worry in her voice. Swarm allowed her smile to get a little wider, broadcasting how she was feeling to the armoured Tinker, And nods a little.
"I'm fine, thank you." She paused, momentarily distracted by the movement of one of her books, but it was only one of the PRT troopers that she had marked earlier- one of the ones that was guiding Shadow around healing stations- so she chose to ignore it and looked back instead. "Everything going well?"
Despite the mask and armour, Dragon somehow managed to look amused. "I would have thought you'd already know that." She said jokingly, gesturing to the little cloud of bugs that was orbiting her. Swarm chuckled, a little sheepishly, and nodded.
"I've been keeping an eye on them, but I meant more from the position of someone in charge of all of the actual heavy lifting, rather than a healer."
Dragon seemed surprised. "I'm fairly sure that a lot of people would claim Inari were the ones who were doing the heavy lifting."
She just shrugged in return, wincing a little as bones cracked and she came to the conclusion that she really needed to move around a bit. "Sure, the healing is a lot of work, but once we're finished with that Inari is pretty much going straight home, you know? Not like you or," she gestured widely around the area to all of the PRT troopers that were discreetly watching their conversation, "all of the others here. You guys are gonna be involved in this for a lot longer, dealing with all of the moving people out and the fallout of not needing to maintain the zone any more. I'd say that that's a lot more heavy lifting than just healing… Or just sitting around playing guard."
Swarm got the faint impression that Dragon, and the aforementioned guards, was staring at her in shock.
"That's…" Dragon trailed off, shaking her head. "That's a very mature point of view."
"I mean, I'm well aware that we're doing quite a lot, and that it's something that nobody else can really do." She shrugged again, before pushing herself off the ground to stand and stretch. "But at the same time… well, it feels a bit like we're not really doing anything at all. Even though none of us would have the first idea as to how to organise all this… it just feels a little like we ought to be doing more. Or perhaps I should."
Dragon closed distance between them, moving surprisingly quickly for a person encased in armour, and rested a hand on her shoulder. "Keeping an eye out for- and on- your team mates is plenty of work, in my eyes." The Tinker told her, before dipping her head closer to Swarm's like she was confiding some sort of secret. "I know how irritating that can be."
The insect controller couldn't help but laugh a little. "I guess you would."
Dragon seemed to give her a smile, moving away again and leaving Swarm to her stretching. "Do you need anything?"
"Not right now." She decided, taking stock. "Might in another few hours, which'll probably also be a good time to force Shadow and Eon into a break as well." Since she was still keeping track of the two even while she talked, she knew that they were resting in between healing bouts, and the Leppa cookies were being used whenever they were needed- Swarm was glad to see that they were apparently working just as well as the Berries themselves would be, and made a note to bake some more of them when they got back from Madison- but she also knew that both of the Pokemon would need to rest for real at some point, and forcing them to take a proper break for food would be a good way to do it.
"Alright."
"The team will reach the city within the next day."
"There were reports of a Dragoncraft leaving Brockton Bay early this morning."
"Any information on where they were going?"
"None."
"Then it will wait until they return to the Bay."
"Are we going to look for their base?"
"No-one seems to have even a starting point for where their base is located, so unless some information on that comes in in the next few hours, no."
"We could try to track them after they return."
"They can go invisible."
"Reportedly they were too tired to manage that last time."
"Doesn't mean that they won't."
"Enough! We aren't going to track them, we'll wait until we have an opportunity in the city itself. It's more likely to happen."
"With them jetting around the world?"
"Shut it!"
"Stop fussing, Swarm." Shadow grumbled, shifting in her seat for the third time in as many minutes. "I-"
"-Don't care what your excuses are, sit down, relax for a few more minutes, and eat something that isn't the biscuits." Her team mate interrupted easily, putting a hand on her back for a moment to make sure she wouldn't try to leave before going back to the sandwiches they'd been given.
The PRT had herded them into one of the break rooms set up for the people dealing with the number of people leaving Madison post healing, where they'd found that Swarm had already claimed a table, food, and drink for all of them. She'd near enough dragged them over, picking up Shadow as if to make sure she wouldn't try to avoid her, and settled back to eat.
Eon, the traitor, had just laughed slightly before following them, sitting gracefully on the bench and accepting what Swarm had chosen without complaint. At this point, with a little under two months of time working together, they were fairly used to getting each other food- usually while on patrol, one of them going in and getting things from the shop while the other two played the crowds outside- so they had a fairly good idea of what the others in the team liked.
Still, even though Shadow was happy with it- chicken and cheese was a nice combo, no matter what anyone else said, and the fact that she could melt it with her fire helped so much- it didn't stop her from being incredibly anxious. She wanted to be out there, healing people, breaking the Simurgh's hold on them so that they could leave the city they'd been trapped in for so long. She didn't want to sit here eating sandwiches and drinking juice and waiting for someone to let her leave. She just wanted to go.
"Shadow, relax." Eon murmured, gently. "You know you need the break just as much as me-"
"Not as much." She grumbled. And that was kind of true, too. She wasn't as tired as Eon was, she was better with the linked Moves thing she did than he was, so it wasn't as much of a stress for her to do it as compared to when Eon did. She didn't need the break as much as him.
"Don't argue, Shadow." Eon sighed. "I know you want to help. So do I, honestly. But we're not going to help making ourselves collapse."
"And besides, I've been watching with my bugs." Swarm added. "You've been moving almost twice as fast as Eon has."
Traitor, Shadow couldn't help but think spitefully, as Eon jolted on the other side of the table and stared at her with undisguised horror.
"Shadow-"
"Shut up." She said. "I just- I need to help, ok? I need to help these people, and if I stop..."
Swarm sighed, putting her hand on Shadow's head, just behind her crest. "They'll still get out of Madison if you take a ten- even five minute break every now and then. But if you end up making yourself collapse, it'll take longer to recover, longer to help people, and longer to move on to the next containment zone to help them."
Reluctantly, she leaned into the touch. "I know, I know. Honestly, promise, I know that. But my brain keeps telling me that I need to work faster, that I need to get to everyone now, because there's no-one else but Eon that can help." Abruptly, she slumped, barely avoiding knocking her sandwich. "I miss the team..."
"Oh, Shadow..."
"I know it's stupid, but I just-"
"It's not stupid to miss home, Shadow." Eon assured her. "I miss it, too. But we've got to keep going, and finish the mission we were sent here to do."
"Whatever that was." She said. It still rankled a bit that they'd actually taken this mission without any real idea as to what the mission was- Hoopa had told them to 'help out', but neither of them had any idea as to what that actually meant. They'd assumed it was either something to do with the gangs, at first, then the Endbringers when they'd found out about those, but there was always the chance it had nothing to do with either of those. At that point they were back to not having any idea about it, though, so Shadow hoped that that wasn't the case.
"We'll figure it out." Eon promised. "We'll stay here, making friends, figure it out, then we'll go home again and share everything with the rest of the team."
"But you aren't going to be able to get there if you keep working yourself into exhaustion all the time." Swarm added. Shadow sighed, sitting up and lifting her sandwich in a telekinetic grip.
"I guess." For a moment, she just sat there, then she started eating again.
She meant what she'd said. She did know that she needed to rest, that she needed to be careful not to collapse. But her brain kept telling her that she needed to work faster, that she couldn't afford to take breaks, because these people had all been suffering because of the Simurgh for so long and she couldn't bare to leave them like that when she could help.
You can't help if you're too exhausted to use your Moves, she reminded herself firmly. If you're practically unconscious on the field, you're no help to anyone, and then Eon would be working all alone. You need to take a break. Besides, they've all been here so long without any hope. Just the fact that you're giving them some is enough to make it that they won't blame you for stopping a while.
That thought carried her through the rest of the ten minute break, and when she ended up beckoning for a trooper to lead her back where she needed to be, Shadow kept them in mind.
"That seemed... out of character for Shadow." Swarm said hesitantly, once the Vulpix was out of range. Eon nodded absently, still working on eating his own sandwich- second, actually; he'd gone to get another one once he'd finished everything since if he was going to be taking a break he might as well eat enough to keep him going for quite some time- and flicked his tails. The up-and-down waving pattern was faintly hypnotic, as intended, and after a moment the distraction illusion came into effect. It was similar to the one about the base, based on the Totter Orb and Zoroark illusions, but slightly less powerful; it served to confuse, nothing more.
"It both is and isn't." Eon responded. "It is now, yes. But before? Before was a little different."
"She was practically self destructing?"
"Sort of." He grimaced. "She wasn't exactly that bad, but she had a tendency to throw herself at problems a little." He took a bite of his sandwich to give himself time to think. "At the beginning, she was bubbly. Bright, cheerful, pretty much any other word you can think of. Happy. She wanted to be a Rescue Pokemon, and she wanted to help people. She was young, and it showed. But she tended to push herself a bit too far sometimes, because she wanted to help."
"She got better?"
"Oh, far better. But at the start it was worrying. The Guild in town didn't want to let her be a team leader, because she was so young- she was only ten- so she asked me to be the leader so she could be the second, and then she'd be able to do what she wanted." Eon chuckled at the memory. Shadow had been miserable up until the point where she'd turned ecstatic at the idea that Eon would help her, and by that point Eon had known her well enough to know that he'd be willing to despite her age. "But because she'd been rejected that first time, she sometimes felt the need to make up for it. To prove that she was Team Inari's second in command because she'd earned that, not because I'd taken pity on the little kid who wanted to play hero."
"I'm going to assume that was a common sentiment?" Swarm tilted her head, picking up on the bit of bitterness in his tone.
"In the early days. It got better once we did more missions, but at the beginning..." He shrugged. "So sometimes she'd end up getting a bit reckless. We didn't have to pull her out of that trouble all that much, luckily, but sometimes she'd get into a situation that meant the rest of the team had to put her on the backseat until she recovered."
"So... what?" Swarm's mask was hiding her expression, but her scent gave off enough confusion to imply that she was probably frowning. "She's acting like this because she thinks she's not good enough to be on the team or something?"
"I don't think it's that." Eon started, then paused. "Or not only that. Maybe some of it's the old insecurity, but I think a lot of it is just what she said. She's one of the only people who can help these people, so every moment she's spending not helping is one that's making her feel bad because no-one else could do what she feels she should be doing."
"She can only do so much."
"She knows." He shrugged. "But it doesn't stop the voice in her head telling her to do more."
His other team mate seemed satisfied at that, or at least understanding, so Eon finished his sandwich in silence before dismissing the Totter illusion and beckoning over to the PRT trooper that had been leading him around.
"I'll see you later, Swarm." He said over his shoulder. The bug user nodded, pulling her mask more firmly over her lower face and waving with the other hand.
"Be careful."
June 3rd, 2011. Friday.
It took until late into the next morning for Inari to be done clearing everyone in Madison. They'd ended up sleeping overnight in a somewhat hastily set up room, and while it had helped, Swarm was still exhausted. And all she'd done was spend the two days sitting around and watching with her bugs.
Eon held himself better, but he was sagging under the weight of tiredness, and Shadow was once again staggering slightly. Swarm tutted before she could help herself and reached forwards, lifting her with a little difficulty into her arms and disregarding the fact that Dragon was standing next to her and there was a PRT escort around them.
"Are you ok?" She directed down at Eon. She didn't even bother with Shadow, knowing how she was doing perfectly well.
The Ninetales nodded, slinking around her feet to sit at her side and curl his tails around her legs. "I will be fine."
From her arms, Shadow muttered something that might've been an agreement, if Swarm had any faith in her being able to follow the conversation around her. Fortunately for Swarm's sanity, Dragon seemed to pick up on the state of things easily, helping to hurry them through everything needed for departure and into the Dragoncraft.
Eon was shortly spread out across one of the couches, leaving Swarm to settle on the other and place Shadow at her side, running a hand down her back.
"It won't take long to get back home, but a short nap is better than nothing, I guess?" She suggested. Eon huffed a laugh.
"True." The small smile he gave her made her grin back, making herself comfortable for the flight.
Hey look, an explanation for why Shadow's been a bit weird while doing the running-about-Simurgh-zones stuff! Hello and welcome to 'silly child with something to prove', they always have the best motivations.