To be honest, she'd only crossed paths with this more allusive type of Pokémon so up close and personal three other times before tonight.
The first in the flash of white and a dark howling call that had first drawn her towards the window just in time to see the caped man guiding the one who would after a long adjustment period become her best friend as well as her 'younger sister' despite the fact Kara was by Krypton standards older than Superman himself.
The second time she and Kara both had run across the 'dooms day' of the Pokémon world was the night Jeremiah 'died'.
The sisters had been out for a little forced 'bonding time' in the Danvers' homes backyard when the snapping of a twig and the ominous shadow of the white-furred mon melted out of the twilight night ahead of where the two teenagers were sitting. Alex glared off into the house's back window as her mother not so stealthily watched over the pair whilst Kara stared up in longing towards the sky point her true home world had been…Then the phone had starting ringing.
The third was the most heartbreaking considering it had been the day Kenny had been murdered. Alex will never forget that time. The look of honest pain in the mon's eyes as it seemed to just appear in front of her as the teenager had waited for her so-called friends to give her a ride to school that day. How shockingly soft the mon's fur had been under her fingers as it nuzzled its horned head against her stomach as it gives a pained mew as if the white-furred Pokémon were some oversized cat asking forgiveness from its owner. Then just as quickly as it had appeared the 'dooms day' Pokémon vanished once more.
Now that ominous blur of white hovers in a shadowed corner before Alex's eyes close tightly even as her body continued falling after being literally tossed out of this latest nightclub. She had to close her eyes one because she was going to fall, b she was going to run into a metal paper stand and three this was going to majorly hurt her head if not cost her an eye if she didn't do something in her drunken state.
A hard-biting tug on the back of the flailing, falling woman's jacket slows her just enough to avoid a hemorrhage from a hit to her head. A low growl that follows makes the dazed partygoer avoid looking at just which of cities ever growing collection of 'wild' Pokémon decided to save her. She already had a sinking feeling she knew already as the grip of teeth against her jacket tightened dragging the hard partier into the more shadowed cover of the bar alleyway.
"No." Alex slurred attempting to keep the blurred face of the Absol in focus when the snow-white mon finally released her "Go away." She growled once more her words slurring in her inebriated state. As she expected the Pokémon ignored her going back to sniffing at her as if checking for any other injuries than just being pickled in liquor as the party girl had been doing a lot of these days.
"Said leave," Alex growled attempting to push the curious mon away and stagger back to her feet once it seemed the Pokémon had for once done as she'd asked only for a pair of strong arms to wrap around her middle from behind. The grip alone enough to prove her soon-to-be attacker wasn't entirely human as a nauseating voice to purr a stomach-turning "Well, well looks like it's my lucky day. Here I come to catch me a shiny to buy my way off this humanoid hell rock and go back home and I end up finding myself an even better prize."
Considering the man's other hand was busy pawing at the front of Alex's jacket the partier wasn't so into her shot glass to guess what the man now holding her hostage was after. "Maybe I'll bring you with me, huh? Plant-to-plant travel is a long time for some and I might need someone to keep me occupied." Alex hears as pair of glowing red eyes appraising her from the mouth of the alleyway. The red-clawed Absol snarled beside it. Heckles raised and teeth bared at Alex's continued attempt to twist away from the literal alien man's grip.
The next few seconds coming as a blur for Alex as a deep but not interlay unfriendly voice gives a threatening "The lady said no so I think you might want to listen to her unless you've forgotten what happens if you cross an Absol?" as the imposing green shaped something steps between the drunken party girl and her would have been assailant.
The alien and the Pokémon gave a drunken but not interlay stupid Alex time to scramble for her keys and trip her way back towards her car. Her hurried state set off the things alarm as she'd slammed against it before she'd fumbled her keys enough to shut the thing off followed rather quickly by the warring red and blue lights of the police bringing a defiant end to the night's attempted party.
How the clever Pokémon had gotten passed the guards or the cameras was a question for when her head wasn't ringing like a fire alarm as the soft tickling of fur nudges the hung-over woman's hand as Alex herself sits in the police station drunk tank.
"I told you to go away." Alex sighed despite the fact she remembered dimly the Pokémon having some role in saving her life "I don't do this partner crap now leave me alone." She tries again as the mon itself curls up on the bench beside her.
"Here I thought you'd be honored to have such a rare Pokémon choose you as its partner instead of you choosing it," a voice Alex didn't recognize comments as another body sits itself down on the other side of the hold cell. "After all wasn't that something you'd always talked about with your father, Alex?"
"What is this a therapy session?" Alex growled looking between the two intruders on her after-party pity party "and I didn't ask for a lawyer so who the heck are you?" she demanded the question earning what could have been a laugh from the lunging Pokémon still curled beside her. It's snow white and red horned furred head already laying in her lap if she'd just scoot the slim distance separating them.
"Good thing I'm not a lawyer then, isn't it?" the dark-skinned man says holding Alex's sobering gaze with an amused one of his own. "My name is Hank Henshaw." He introduces "I was a friend of your fathers."
"You don't look like any Pokémon researcher I've ever met." Alex counters defensively now.
"Pokémon research is only part of what your father and I accomplished together. We also protect the Earth from other visitors. Visitors like that man who tried to attack you this afternoon or other more friendly varieties like your sister. Kara, isn't it?"
Even the Absol beside her bristles at Kara's name or that might have been Alex's "Leave my sister out of this" snarl as she jumped to her feet despite the fact her legs were still mostly rubber from the night's events of hard parties and the almost assault.
"Rather beautiful isn't is?" the man- Henshaw- says in answer his eyes on the more red-tented version of the Pokémon laying so at ease beside the annoyed human woman. "and far more intelligent than even the best of your Pokémon researchers give it credit for. Much like yourself at one point despite what your latest school records show." He goes on now looking between the Pokémon and the human the mon seemed to have chosen as its trainer.
"All it wants is to help those around it. Just like at one point you, am I right?" Henshaw asked again showing a far better insight into Alex's more personal history for the hung-over woman's liking.
"I never finished my residency." Alex bristled at her failed attempt at becoming a doctor.
"Never able to reach your full potential, just like this Absol here. Only unlike it you are your own worst enemy, Alex." Hank says his hands now resting against the bars holding Alex back from punching him in his jaw if he didn't back off soon. "Just because she has those extraordinary abilities even when she keeps them hidden, you think you're not special enough."
Again, Alex bristles at the mention of her younger sister. Perfect Kara. Always Eliza's favorite no matter how hard Alex tried to prove herself in her mother's eyes against her literal alien of an adopted sister.
"But your father believed you Alex, and so do I."
Alex's eyes meet Henshaw's own at that. The fatherly warmth in them almost has the partier girl believing him for a half second before she was back to distrusting him as he moved even closer to the drunk tank bars whilst Alex takes a few retreating steps back. "Don't just throw your life away." Henshaw begged
"Save the mushy talk." Alex growled once again carding her shaking hands threw the oh-so-soft fur of the Absol's head and curved horn as the Pokémon itself leaned steadying against her side as she glared the neatly dressed man down passed the separating gaps of the cell's bars. "Why are you really here?"
Henshaw smiles at the question. "I work for a government agency sanctioned to defend this plant from any threat against it." He answers, "An organization that needs you in its ranks, Alex." He adds as he rocks back on his heels still appraising her with far too understanding eyes as she thinks over the idea.
"We already have something like that its called the police force." Alex reminds earning a small smile from the eavesdropping cop sitting at the desk behind Henshaw. The cop's Pokémon partner smaller than Alex would have thought Houndour laying at her side keeping an eye on the cell and Henshaw considering the cop was too busy filling out paperwork to bother looking up since Alex has been brought in.
"Sometimes the threats will be too big for even them to handle. That's where we would step in. Keeping everyone humans and aliens safe." The way he stresses the words as he dropped his voice so only, she and a few others already snoring and passed out in the cell with her could hear has Alex's attention once more as the cop's eyes drop back to the page she was reading.
"Sawyer go let the party girl out then pack up your desk. Congratulations you're Gotham's problem now." Another officer called out at the same time Alex agreed, "Alright then." Answer to the offered job the man seemed to be giving her.
"Have you thought of a nickname for him yet?" the cop questions as she gets the keys whilst beside her the Houndour that had been leaning against her ankle as she worked starches and yawns tiredly before following her. Neither of them apparently surprised at the fact the sly Pokémon had found a way into the cell in the first place as she stands to unlock it
"Tonic." Alex decides glancing down at the Pokémon sitting beside her.
The Absol seemed to purr at the name nuzzling its head under Alex's hand in acceptance as the door groaned open.