(Beep. Beep. Beep. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-WHACK!)
117Jorn: For the love of, CLEAR *places Pac-Gible atop Ron, as he delivers an electric shock to Ron*
Ron the True Fan: PARROTS! ...Did I just DIE?
Takeshi Yamato: Close enough. Anyway, we got a fic to do.
Location unknown, Ranseian Empire, Day 113 of Ash Ketchum's Pokemon Journey
Flying in a Ranseian VTOL, Kyoji and his party rode over the Ranseian sea - the Ranseian coastline visible to the left as it continued on to its destination. "So… where are we going?" Neesha asked.
"Classified military base," Kyoji informed. "We'll know more once we arrive - you know how secretive an army can be."
"Always keeping things to themselves." Neesha said. "I'm kinda surprised you even slept, given all the sharp yells I kept hearing from your room."
All of which were Sabrina's fault. She enjoyed screwing with his head. And if it got him to confront her on the subject… she wouldn't complain.
…She might've gotten that from Delia. She was a bit of a sadist. Never hurt her kids, but DAMN, that woman enjoyed making anyone that pissed her off bleed. And her husband was a bit of a masochist, but she wasn't telling anyone that. Kyoji… not so much of a masochist, but it's something she felt needed to be handled.
It was sweet really, him trying to be considerate of her powers, and she could tell there wasn't an inch of doubt in his mind that he wants to be with her. He just has that tiny hope of having a harem like Ash's, but sees that as being… unrealistic. After all, there is only one 'Chosen One'. And he was doing everything in his power to keep that thought as deeply buried in his mind as he could out of respect… even though he really, really didn't need to go that far.
"…I have, uh…" Kyoji bit his lip a bit, "bad… dreams sometimes… keeps me up at night..."
"…do you have PTSD or something?" Maren asked.
"Nonono!" Kyoji waved his hands, "Nothing like that! Just… a bad track record, that's all."
Sabrina scoffed before the VTOL slowed its' forward movement, slowly but surely going towards the ground. "Looks like we're here." she said, as the craft's landing gear extended, allowing the craft to land safely.
"Let's go!" Kyoji called, before Gible screamed in terror, latching onto his head. "Whoa, Gible! What's wrong-"
"Akamura." came a cold, annoyed female voice. "You are fortunate the Natu you stole from us bore such wonderful news, or else I would take him from you."
Kyoji paused, before he groaned as he looked over - spotting a woman who was clad in what could only be described as armored Miko robes - donned in power armor, yet with the traditional robes conjoined to retain the color scheme and style. The woman in question had long silver hair, and dark red eyes as she wielded a large weapon in her grasp.
"Mei." Kyoji sighed, "How many times do I have to tell you, I didn't steal Natu - he came to me…"
"Your Gible electrocuted twenty of us, latched onto Natu with his oversized maw and brought him to you." 'Mei' retorted. "Consider yourself blessed by Arceus that we don't end your life for this."
Sabrina looked between the two. "Ex-girlfriend, I assume?" she asked playfully.
The miko scoffed. "He wishes." she said. "Mei Sukone. I am of the devout."
Kyoji sighed. "She's one of the Shrine Maidens." he explained. "The… extremely devout."
Maren smirked. "I thought you said they were religious crazies." she said, milking any chance to get some payback for her boat.
"To be mad is to be enlightened." Mei said, the insult backfiring completely.
Kyoji just stared back at Maren with a 'seriously?' look, before looking back to Mei. "If I really kidnapped Natu, why didn't it just teleport back to the monastery?" His Natu appeared, as it nested itself atop of Gible - atop of his head.
"That's enough!" came a male voice, a man in a lab coat running towards the group. "Sukone-san, the Maidens are only welcomed here so long as they don't interfere in military affairs! I don't even know how you know about-"
"Natu!" 'I did!' cried a female Natu that landed on Mei's head, spreading her wings.
"…Damn parrots." the man said before looking to the group. "My apologies. I hoped to get here first, but every Natu knows teleport."
"Natu!" 'Hi, little sister!' said Kyoji's parrot. "Natu?" 'How is everyone?'
"Natu." 'They miss you. But you're so lucky! You met the Chosen of Arceus!' her natu replied.
"Natu! Natu..." 'I did! He's… not quite what one would expect, but he has already done things that will dismiss any doubt as to who he really is!'
"Anyways," The man spoke up as he stepped forward, "Welcome to Raiden Base, I am Commander Shin Nagumo, it's a pleasure to have you here.
"Pleasure to be here sir," Kyoji nodded, bowing in respect. "Ready for orders, sir."
Nagumo nodded, looking at the silver-haired woman. "You're going to be tagging along, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically.
"The Creator wills I protect the Chosen. Even if it means working with one that took one of the messengers of Arceus." she said, glaring at Kyoji.
"Natu." 'You never told them?' Kyoji's parrot asked.
"Natu." 'You know the crazies. Once they get an idea, they never change their mind.' his sister replied.
Natu met Gible before they met Kyoji. In fact, they met him the same day. And Gible did zap many of them. At Natu's request.
He was a shit disturber back then.
…He still was. Kyoji wouldn't have to deal with the mikos if he wasn't.
"If you weren't cute, I would hate you." Kyoji said to the parrot.
"Natu." 'But you don't.' said the psychic parrot, eye-smiling smugly before Kyoji started following the commander, everyone on his heels, the maiden glaring at him the entire time.
Nagumo gave the group an overall tour of the base - basically showing the group where to find critical areas like the mess hall, sick bay and such. However they began to approach the rear-most portion of the base, as they arrived at a large door - and as they approached… Sabrina stopped.
"Sabrina?" Kenji asked, glancing back. "What's wrong?"
She looked at her boyfriend for a second before realizing something. "You couldn't feel it if you tried." she said. "There's a psychic in there. A fairly powerful one, too."
"I see you can feel our proudest achievement." Nagumo said. "The most powerful psychic in Ferrum, though not as powerful as you are, Madam Natsume."
Kyoji looked at Sabrina. "It takes a freaking legendary to outmuscle Sabrina!" he said. "I'd know: I've seen it!"
"We're aware of the New Island incident, Lieutenant. Though not all the details…" Nagumo said, giving a pointed look at Mei. "I wonder why."
"If Arceus willed the knowledge to be known, it would be known." Mei shrugged.
"Yes." Nagumo sighed, before using his keycard to open the door. "While this area contains our greatest, this facility also operates as a Headquarters for our Psionics research, and is where we bring identified Psychics so that they can be taught how to control their abilities… to avoid them from… well…" He glanced at Sabrina again. "…I believe you would know why."
"I see you know what happened to me." Sabrina deadpanned.
"Do not blame your significant other for doing his job." Nagumo 'suggested'. "He was just doing his job. At least that information I know."
Mei glared at Sabrina. "You had a soul possessing you." she said. "If you endangered the Chosen in any way, your life is forfeit."
"Maybe you shouldn't be threatening the Chosen one's adoptive daughter," Kyoji glared at Mei.
"…pardon?" Mei blinked.
"Ash, the one you call the Chosen One, is my father." Sabrina said, matter-of-factly. "He took me in after my… incident."
Kyoji chuckled nervously as he held Gible in his arms. "Surprise?" he said, Gible being as cute as he could be.
Mei glared at Kyoji before turning her gaze to Sabrina. "My tolerance for you will be tested." she all but snarled. "For he should have no children at this age."
"Nothing biological. Adopted is another story." Sabrina said, mocking the battle shamaness. "Now… this prized psychic of yours?"
"Of course," Nagumo nodded, as the keycard turned green for a moment - as the massive set of doors slowly began to slide open. This allowed the group inside, as they walked within the large halls. There were a number of scientists within operating various equipment, but it was all centered around a rather large area where a single individual was currently standing in the middle of what looked like a dojo.
The individual was a woman, with red hair that fell freely down past her shoulders. She also had rather impressive 'assets', which was primarily evident because she wasn't wearing much. She wore what looked like armor, but it was very skimpy armor, barely enough to preserve her modesty. She had a blue bra with a very... abbreviated blue chestplate atop it, which included some kind of green orb which glowed, and she had a white armored skirt with two grey metallic things extending from the sides. Her forearms had white gauntlets on them, with black gloves on her hands. Her lower legs were clad in white armored boots, the soles of which were blue. Two massive blue pauldrons with green trim rested on her shoulders, two black-and-blue wings extended from an assembly on her back, and a circlet adorned her head. A white circlet with what appeared to be a v-shaped crest on the front. As the group watched, the girl took hold of two cylindrical objects from her hips, and as she assumed a ready stance with the objects, magenta-colored blades sprang from them.
"…I have several questions..." Kyoji muttered. "Why is she wearing skimpy armor? What is with the armor? And why does she look like she belongs in a mecha anime?"
Nagumo laughed at the confusion shown by all and voiced by Kyoji. "All valid questions." he said before Mei pulled out a very large caliber pistol. In fact, it would be more valid to call it a low-caliber grenade launcher shaped like a pistol.
"Answer the question plainly. You waste time the Chosen does not have." she ground out.
Nagumo chuckled nervously before clearing his throat. "For context, you will need a mild history lesson." he started. "You've seen ruins depicting sun kings and queens, all appearing mostly or entirely nude?"
Neesha blushed at that. "W-wha-WHY? Why would anyone do that?" she demanded. Might not have been a prude, but that was… a bit much.
Sabrina decided to pitch in. "Psychics do not like being stuffed in clothing." she said, gesturing to her own outfit, which was rather revealing, now that she wasn't wearing the jacket, exposing more skin then most people would be comfortable with, only preserving the bare minimum of modesty. And those pants hid next to nothing, so that didn't help. "We prefer having our skin covered with sunlight. I can put up with it due to...well, you know why. But the more a psychic bundles up, the weaker their powers are."
"Those kings and queens of past were psychics, nude to preserve their power." Nagumo added. "One of the first rulers of Ransei and the last King of Pokelantis, for example, were powerful psychics, though not on the same level as Sabrina, here."
Sabrina mentally shivered at the mention of the King of Pokelantis, but she didn't know why.
"As for the armor itself, it functions as amplifiers to her power," Nagumo continued. "The orb on her chest is a generator that enhances an innate forcefield around herself, so even with the exposed skin, she is well-protected. The crest is a set of antennae, that allow her to control/expand her abilities of telepathy and telekinesis, while also letting her remotely control special drones in the wings and shoulders."
Kyoji attempted not to stare. The woman testing the suit was rather pretty and that armor covered very, VERY little. Sabrina was only vaguely amused.
After all, this time he had an excuse: those drones were not meant to be eyes and ears and if she was offended, death would follow very, very quickly. Sabrina also remembered something she picked up from Ash's mind, something he unknowingly picked up from Mewtwo in the other timeline: the artificial Legendary wearing a suit of armor akin to this, but more restrictive.
"I seem to recall Team Rocket attempting something like this with Pokemon." she then voiced, not revealing where she got this information. "It failed badly."
"A human is less inclined to want to strip and be naked, madam." the commander said. "Which brings us to another point." Nagumo looked to the woman. "Hitomi, your tests are done. We'll allow you some privacy."
"Yes, Commander," the woman, Hitomi, said. "I will wish to properly meet our guests once I am out of the armor."
"This way, please." Nagumo said, gesturing to another door, which all of them headed towards for two reasons: one, to give the lady privacy, two, to avoid getting those psionically-controlled drones shoved into their skulls from an errant thought.
"Weaponizing psychics?" Maren asked.
"Ferrum knows Ransei exists, Maren and the only reason they haven't tried to nuke us is the second they do, they'll have everyone storming their shores." Kyoji said, Gible nodding. "They might be easy to clean up with Pokemon, but you can't just throw a nuke around for no reason at all."
Sabrina snorted. "Tell that to the Battle of Ecruteak." she snarked.
"The Battle of Ecruteak was…" Kyoji paused for a moment "…unique circumstances from what I've heard… but that aside, while they are weaponized… they are still humans with rights of course. We're not Team Rocket, after all."
"Yes, but that brings us to something we learned." Nagumo said as they were led to a lab, where there was a lot of notes and a tree-like chart.
While they were aware of evolution as a Pokemon thing, they were only vaguely aware of it as a long-term theory. "You know that Pokemon are the most common form of life, but they aren't the only ones." Nagumo said. "Humans, for example."
"It's not… normal though, for humans to do… things like that?" Maren asked, gesturing at all of the psychic technology around.
"Actually, not as much as you'd think." A new voice spoke up, as a man wearing a labcoat approached them. Wearing glasses and gloved hands.
"Ah, Doctor." Nagumo nodded, "Ladies, this is Doctor Gendo Shimada, head researcher of our Psionics program."
"It is a pleasure to meet you, at long last miss Ketchum," Gendo smiled, bowing in respect to Sabrina. "I've heard a great many things about your Psionic prowess."
Sabrina chuckled. "I didn't change my name, but thank you." she said. "But you'll have to explain what you were talking about. An evolutionary chart? Every Pokemon originated from Mew, but we know nothing about the rest. Non-Pokemon animals are rather hard to find in the fossil record. Made worse by, well, the Shadow Pokemon plague."
"That is true, that all pokemon are descended from Mew - who is the direct descendent of Arceus." Gendo nodded, "But I ask you… where did humanity come from? We didn't just pop into existence one day… no, we came from something - just like Pokemon. And the fact that humans with powers like yourself prove that there is more connecting us to Pokemon that we may have originally believed."
"Wait…" Maren muttered, "Are you saying Humans… are Pokemon?"
"Yes… well, we used to at some point," Gendo stated, "There are many Pokemon who possess exceptionally humanoid body types like Machomp. I have been conducting research into this, and thus far my theory seems to thus far remain accurate. That theory being that humans are descended from a species of Pokemon - possibly a Pokemon species directly descended from Mew, which would explain why thus far humans are only capable of learning Psychic-type abilities like Hitomi and Sabrina have. Our ancient ancestors were likely a psychic-type."
Mei huffed. "And of course, the religious community doesn't care." Gendo deadpanned.
"Aura." the shamaness said. "From what we have learned, Ash Ketchum, Chosen of Arceus, is the heir to the Kingdom of Rota, whose kings have always been Aura adepts. Lucario is the only species that can use it in the same way."
"We just know it's psychic-type. For all we know, it's psychic/fighting! But that's a mystery we can only figure out if we find a complete fossil!" the somewhat-mad-sounding scientist said. "The only ones we've found are fragments, which aren't good enough!"
"It's also supported by the fact we can stun people using a Pokeball's return beam, so there's that, at least." Neesha mused. "But why are we here? Are you going to get some stripperiffic armor suit for Sabrina? Because I don't think she needs it. She's scary ENOUGH without something to enhance it."
Sabrina looked back at her. "I apologized for what happened!" she exclaimed.
"It still happened!" Neesha retorted.
"Ah, yes." Gendo adjusted his glasses, "To the subject… with Sabrina's permission of course, we would like to craft a set of Psionic Armor for her own personal use - to aid her in the mission against Ferrum… which I assume she accepted to participate in?" He glanced between Nagumo and Sabrina.
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't going to help Kyoji." the psychic said. "And besides, Kanto will need Ferrum out of the way if we're going to recover from this damn plague their pawns unleashed a century ago."
"Well said! Shame the Purify Chamber data was lost after Cipher's takeover." Gendo replied. "But I suppose those Yveatal worshipping idiots want everything to die anyways, so why should they care?"
"Someone's going to have to explain to us why Orre got the crazies." Maren deadpanned.
"Lord Yveltal was a victim of his own creation. He is only insane because Giratina wanted to know the pride of fatherhood." Mei snapped. "Cipher does not worship him in the proper way."
"That aside, we have much work to do," Gendo stated, looking at Sabrina, "If you would follow me please, ma'am. Our technicians need to properly scan you so that your own suit can be properly calibrated to your psionics."
"Of course," Sabrina nodded, glancing at Kyoji for a moment as she smiled, "Be right back, kay?"
"Kay..." He nodded, "I'll just… wait here then, I guess..."
Sabrina followed the doctor before Neesha took Gible from him. "I'll protect Gible from the crazy lady." she stated. "I mean… the only reason she's not killing the little guy is Sabrina…"
The yellow land shark cried out in fear before urging her to leave, which she did. "Gib!" 'Later!' cried the land shark.
Maren sighed. "I'm going to see if there's any good coffee around here. None of that instant crap." she groused as she left the lab.
Kyoji looked at Mei. "…Truce?" he asked. His answer was her pulling out that oversized pistol of hers and examining it. "Or not…"
"I tolerate you only because the Natu hasn't demanded your scalp." the religious zealot said. "If I learn that the sacred bird has been abused-"
"You'll do what?" asked the voice of someone familiar, yet new, as the 'Hitomi' girl walked into the room, now wearing something more modest.
The maiden scowled before leaving the room, her own Natu hopping behind her.
"Um… thanks?" Kyoji smiled a bit at the woman, "I… don't know how to talk to people like her… I could tell them the truth point blank and they'll still call me a liar."
"They're religious fanatics. Nothing you can do about that. Except maybe get this 'Chosen' of theirs to shut them up." she said, before thinking about it. "Though they might be so insane, they'll think he's lying."
"I'm more worried what'll happen when the Chosen meets them…" Kyoji muttered, "He's already got enough girl troubles, having an entire Shrine Maiden organization coming after him… I… don't envy being in that position…"
Hitomi shuddered. "Neither do I. Still, not much we can do about it at the moment." There was a moment's silence, before she bowed. "Hitomi Tachibana."
"Kyoji Akamura, RRA Special Forces." he answered. "Though you might already know that…"
"We're not allowed to read the minds of military personnel." she said. "Security reasons. That and we're not immune to bullets."
"Yeah, but they can stop them in mid-flight," Kyoji mused. "I've seen Sabrina do it plenty of times… and send them flying right back at whoever was dumb enough to shoot her…"
"Sabrina… the psychic from Kanto? I've read reports. They don't go into too much detail but…" Hitomi shuddered. "She didn't seem pleasant before whatever happened to her happened."
Kyoji scratched the top of his head. "Yeah, she was being possessed by some old soul or something. They don't want to talk about it." he said. "Come to think of it, I wouldn't, either."
Hitomi pursed her lips. "Possession?" she asked. "Not a common thing. Something would have to be powerful to force itself on another body and take control. Unless it's a child, in which case… An undeveloped mind would have no chance."
"I never really asked." He shrugged. "I mean, she's told me enough and whenever it's brought up… well, I'm not good at reading people, but I get this… feeling that she doesn't like getting into details with… whatever happened that day." He just smiled a bit, "All that matters is… she's better now."
"I see." She shrugged, as well. "Well, if it comes up, it comes up." Another pause. "Were you assigned to the base recently? I don't remember seeing you before."
Kyoji smiled. "Recently assigned, though not for long: I'll be heading for Ferrum in a few days." he said. "Commies are planning something big with Orre and we need to stop them before they make everything worse. We have enough problems with Shadow Pokemon, we don't need them lobbing nukes everywhere from their airships."
"Agreed," Hitomi replied. "Well, good luck on your mission. And who knows? Maybe I will be assigned to it, as well."
"Maybe. We'll see." Kyoji said… then remembered her really, REALLY skimpy armor suit and suddenly wanted her very, very far away.
30 minutes later
She wasn't going away.
"I am sorry for this, but all of you do need to be informed of who you're dealing with." the base commander said. "And normally, I wouldn't bring in civilians, but we don't have a great deal of options."
"Well, this wasn't how I expected my week to go in the first place," Maren sighed, shrugging, "So, what is it?"
"These are the primary leaders of Ferrum," Nagumo stated, sliding a few boxes over to everyone. Maren blinked as she opened up her box, revealing… "…playing cards?"
"We call it the Deck of 52," He informed, gesturing to the cards. Maren looked, and noticed each card didn't have the traditional icons of a normal deck of cards - rather each card had a number, symbol and a face attached to it. "We have identified the 52 most-wanted men and women within the Ferrum Government, Miliary and other associated organizations."
"Basically, these guys run everything: industry, news, military, government, diplomatic contacts." Kyoji added, Gible glaring at all of the cards. "Without them, the communist government will start falling apart. It's basically just a cult of personality, after all."
Maren hmmed in disinterest. She hated politics and spy games. Travelling the world was one thing, getting involved in history was another. Leave that to the adventurous types.
The commander flipped a specific card, a man with a seemingly simple jacket, waving off to something off to the side. "Ace of Spades: Sun Xuefeng, Supreme Leader of the Ferrum People's Communist Party." he said. "Cutting off his head would cause the government to fragment and collapse into infighting."
"Of course we need to cut off a few more heads though..." Kyoji nodded, "If any of the other big players live, they might be able to keep the country in one piece in the power vacuum. " He began to flip through some of the cards, "Xi Shao-li, Ace of Clubs - head of Ferrum's own state-sponsored Mafia, General Zhang Chang, Ace of Diamonds and Head of their Biological and Chemical weapons research, General Xi Shaolong, head of their experimental weapons division… them and 48 others all need to go before Ferrum can be eliminated from the picture entirely."
"I don't think we can get to the most heavily guarded man on the planet." Neesha said. "I mean, I agreed to help, but not go on an assassination spree or a suicide mission."
"Fortunately, you don't have to." Nagumo said, pulling up a file. "There is a VERY active resistance movement in Ferrum, though it is suppressed. Selan supplies them as much as they can, but it's not exactly easy with the sheer fuckton of mines and patrol ships. We're a little more successful, but only barely."
"What we make up for in quality, they make up in for sheer quantity." Kyoji shrugged, "Ferrum was able to weather the storm of the Shadows because they have billions of people living there, and maintain a strong agricultural and industrial base. Their shit is cheap but they can replace manpower and equipment quickly."
"So, I assume we're supposed to link up with the resistance then?" Maren sighed.
"Yes," Nagumo nodded, "We will be providing you, Miss Maren, with a vessel to transport them, and help with their evac if needed. You can consider this vessel to act as… compensation for the vessel you lost to the Gyarados attack. And I can assure you, that this vessel will not sink quite so easily."
"Oh, good. I get them to the most heavily fortified place on the planet, then I get to go back to my ferry business." Maren said, faux-cheerfully, knowing that it wasn't that simple.
Nagumo dashed that pessimism not a moment later. "Accurate enough." he said. "If Lieutenant Akamura's track record holds, he'll probably have the government chasing its' own tail and driving itself insane. He's done it before."
"…not quite to this scale, but… kinda," Kyoji nodded, sighing.
"The Maidens have sent me to assist in this." Mei finally spoke up. "Even if I must deal with someone who stole one of our seer Natus, the Chosen of Arceus is in Orre and requires our aid. We cannot go there yet, so Ferrum will taste our righteous fury."
'She is creepy as all hell.' Sabrina thought to Kyoji. 'I know they're all religious zealots, but this… is worrying.'
'I would hate to be Ash when they meet...' Kyoji thought back. 'Uh, by the way… how's the fitting process going? They aren't making you do anything… weird, are they?'
'Not as weird as you think. Most of these people are actually tailors.' she sent back. 'Apparently they have to get it as tight as possible while making it very comfortable.'
His face was going to turn red enough to kill him if it was going to be THAT form-fitting. Sabrina was hot enough in normal clothing. In that skimpy suit, he was sure to have all the blood shoot out of his nose.
As he thought about this though, suddenly images of Sabrina wearing a very revealing suit of armor similar to the one Hitomi was wearing flashed before his eyes - followed by accompanying images of the other girls in similar armor. Kyoji winced as he hurriedly banished the thoughts from his mind as his face went red.
"Now, we'll get you set up with your new boat, Miss Maren." Nagumo declared. "We do owe you for bringing the Lieutenant home."
Maren adjusted the brim of her hat. "Damn right you do." she said.
Valora Port - 1947 hours local time
The boat was larger than her old one, with a new electric engine, better batteries and even a fancy sonar depth finder. It also hid a nasty surprise under the deck.
"I do not need an anti-tank gun!" Maren said, objecting to the 88mm cannon in a hidden hatch under the decking. "Do you know how many people will notice that in inspections in the Orange Islands?! I do not want to get accused of being a Team Rocket sleeper agent! They LYNCH sleeper agents and the locals get medals for it!"
"Actually, we've got paperwork for you that will ensure you that this weapon was given to you as compensation by the Ranseian military," Kyoji informed, handing her a stack of papers. "Since Ransei will be going public after this whole Ferrum B.S is taken care of, you will have an official license to operate Ranseian military hardware…. In fact, you'd be the second Foreigner to be allowed this honor."
"Who was the first?"
"Ash Ketchum when I gave him my Laser Sword… I've got paperwork he's gonna have to sign later..."
"He's a fucking monarch: he doesn't have to sign shit." Maren retorted.
"...Fair point." Kyoji said after thinking about it for a second. "At least he's the first Rotan monarch in recorded history not to have a raging hate boner for Ransei, so that's a plus."
"Anyone gonna tell me what that's about?" the ferrywoman asked, honestly curious.
"We...don't actually know. It's like those family feuds." Kyoji said with some experience in the matter. "No one knows how it started, it just keeps going...and going...and going...Gible, stop circling me when I say that."
The yellow land shark poked his head out of the ground. "Gible!" 'But I like doing that!' he exclaimed. "Gib!" 'It's FUN!'
"I know, but its making me dizzy," Kyoji sighed, shaking his head. "But yeah Maren, don't worry - as long as you got the permits, you don't have to worry about getting pulled over for having these guns… including the Bofors."
"Wait, the what-" She began to ask, before a 40mm Autocannon was also loaded up on the bow of the ship. "...Oh."
"If we're going into Ferrum waters, it pays to have some extra guns," Kyoji chuckled.
"Well, until the Shadow Pokemon bullshit ends, I guess having them is better then not." the ferrywoman mused.
"Indeed." came the voice of the psychic woman, Hitomi, as she walked up to them in what could be called a far too exposing sundress. Then again, psychics fed on solar power, apparently. "Though I have the feeling this Ash boy is doing his best to end that in Orre."
"Could you NOT read our minds?" Kyoji asked.
"I read the briefing before I came here." she objected. "As you might've heard, psychics aren't immune to bullets."
"You can stop a lot of them." Maren pointed out.
"Stopping one hundred bullets doesn't mean I can stop one-oh-one." Hitomi pointed out.
"Also doesn't mean you can't, if we're being honest about it..." Kyoji shrugged, "So… is Sabrina with you, or…?"
"Oh, I'm here." came the voice of his girlfriend as she walked in, wearing a very, very similar suit to Hitomi's, being very skintight and showing off all of her assets FAR too well. Being colored a reddish-brown, only instead of the split-winged design she had what looked almost like a jetpack on her back. "How do I look?"
Kyoji plugged his nose to prevent sudden death. "I am going to die." he said. "Of embarrassment."
"You're not that bashful." Sabrina said as she sauntered up to him. "And I won't be wearing this the entire way. Just figured I'd test it first before putting it away."
"W-Well, umm… y-you look g-good..." Kyoji sputtered, eyeing her up again as his face burned bright red. "L-like… really good..."
Sabrina smiled before pulling out her bags. "I'll get on the boat and get changed." she said."As...liberating as this thing is, you need to get used to it in small doses."
On that, Kyoji could not argue. "Well, off we go then?" he asked.
Maren sighed as she walked into the wheelhouse, just as Neesha got onto the boat pen. "Last call for Ferrum." the captain sarcastically called.
The Forbidden Region, as it was called, awaited.
Ron the True Fan: ...The newest idea is Take's fault.
117Jorn: Gundam Girls, ladies and Gentlemen… we could not resist the urge.
Ron the True Fan: YOU couldn't resist the urge. I only went with it out of necessity because you two couldn't think of anything that worked as well. I also apologize for the INSANE delay. The muses were not with this fic. Or any fic. We went into a slump. Still IN the slump, but we're digging our way out.
Takeshi Yamato: Well, technically, we could have gone the Symphogear route, but that would have taken much more effort to get to work.
Ron the True Fan: And it took naught but milliseconds to give me a migraine only Gible could cure. (Natu appears with a flamethrower) NOT AGAIN! (Runs off as the bird chases him with a flaming weapon)
Ja Ne!