In the quiet forest several miles outside Olivine City, a calm conversation
was in action. Nozomi gently rubbed the bridge of her nose to fight off a
threatening migraine. Of all the Trainers in the world, she was stuck with
these two…
"Okay, tell me again what we're doing now that you two are fugitives?" Nozomi inquired.
"You say it as if this were the first time." Karuta's voice was a bit strained.
"She don't know us vewwy well, do she?" Amos snickered in baby-talk, though his voice had a gritty tone as well.
"Enough already. Can you two please behave like civil human beings for one minute?"
With a great deal of reluctance, Karuta withdrew the tip of his katana from where it was pressed to Amos' jugular. Amos released his grip on Karuta's windpipe and let the smaller man drop almost a foot back to the ground. With this small victory back towards order, Nozomi took it upon herself to act as a barrier between the two fighters so they wouldn't try and kill each other for the tenth time since they lost the chasing authorities in the woods.
"Alright then. You two have some explaining to do. Make with the story telling." Nozomi glowered at each of the men. Amos had the decency to look ashamed while Karuta just glared back at her.
"Karuta, you're the bookkeeper. You tell her." Amos shrugged as he sat himself down under a tree.
"Lazy as ever, ne?" Karuta prodded as he slipped his katana back under his coat.
"The day you tell me how you do that with your coat is the day I stop being lazy." Amos returned.
"And sloth wins out once more."
"Hello! Needing information here!" Nozomi demanded as she got in Karuta's face. Karuta simply placed a hand on the girl's forehead and pushed her back to arm's length without her moving her feet. Nozomi blinked at the grooves her shoes had made in the dirt, but shrugged it off. Things never were easy nor normal with Karuta or Amos…
"Calm down Nozomi, you'll give yourself an ulcer one of these days." Karuta advised.
"I don't need your advice on my health. How do you and Amos know each other?"
"I already told'ja!" Amos chimed from his spot.
"You challenged Amos, Dokuga mauled his Machamp, he wants revenge. Cliff- notes of your history is what I got." Nozomi grumbled. Amos shrugged.
"Is that all he told you? Really Amos, you should be ashamed. Deceiving a nice young woman like Nozomi with that drivel." Karuta chided with a tone of amusement in his voice. He coughed into his gloved fist and straightened his glasses, which happened to be slightly cracked from the fight.
"Like deceit ain't your native tongue?" Amos raised an inquisitive eyebrow to Karuta.
"The whole thing started when I heard about a pokemon gym that had a leader who really knew how to train his pokemon. The idea that trainers should fight with their pokemon is unpopular in more than one sense, mainly because pokemon trainers these days are either little kids on their summer vacations or old folks who want some pet to fill the emotional gap caused by their waning existence."
"Lovely start-up, ain't it? You should do narrations for kiddy shows." Amos added.
"Shut up and let me finish, you waste of carbon."
"Amos, put that branch down!"
Amos grumbled as he tossed a branch of the tree he had been resting under over his shoulder. Nozomi sighed in relief; at least Amos still listened to her to a degree. Karuta looked from the two for a moment, then gave a smirk of realization that made Nozomi feel quite unsettled.
"As I was saying…I wanted to find the leader that had the same style of training that I did. So I headed to Crimson and sought him out. We fought and he lost." Karuta continued.
"You lost? You didn't tell me that." Nozomi blinked as she turned to Amos.
"I did not lose! He's tried to make it sound like he won because of a technicality!" Amos bellowed in sudden outrage as he retrieved his branch.
"All Gyms have to play by League rules, even yours." Karuta said smugly.
"How'd you win the fight?" Nozomi asked as she gave up trying to keep Amos seated.
"Ring-out."
"I hardly call being thrown through a wall a ring-out!" Amos bellowed once more.
"You left the ring, it counted." Karuta crossed his arms over his chest and sidestepped past swinging foliage.
"Anyway, Amos lost but refused to relinquish a badge on his still constant argument. We argued and I eventually got my badge. Mind you that he didn't give it to me, I had to pick-pocket it off him when he was trying to strangle me." Karuta continued.
"You were getting throttled and you still managed to pickpocket him? Geez, are you a klepto or something?" Nozomi asked incredulously.
"No, I just like to steal stuff. It's fun." Karuta grinned.
"Forget I asked."
"Easier done than said."
"So everything Amos told me about his Machamp getting injured was a lie?"
"No, Amos isn't smart enough to make up a story like that. --Put down that rock, Amos.-- He just edited the truth a bit. His Machamp was indeed injured; Dokuga ate one of his arms. What Amos chose to not mention was that the walking mass of testosterone was injured when Amos tracked me down for robbing him and tried to get revenge. Not in the gym fight, as he'd have you believe." Karuta explained.
Nozomi glared at Amos for a moment, who had frozen position with a sizable rock hefted over his head to crush Karuta. Karuta simply grinned over Nozomi's shoulder as the small-in-comparison girl stomped up to Amos and jabbed him in the stomach with a finger.
"You lied to me about something that important?! And here I thought you were my friend, how could you?" Nozomi jabbed Amos a few more times. From behind her, Karuta placed a twig in her hand, which she used to poke Amos further.
"Oh c'mon, you make it sound like I told ya' I'd lost a brother or somethin' with that tone you're using." Amos complained. Nozomi was handed a larger stick and she continued with the jabbing.
"You might as well have! I trusted you and went as far as to go with you to find Karuta! I could understand wanting revenge if he had done that much damage out of cold blood, but you're the one who started the whole thing!"
Nozomi had to halt herself from poking as she realized that she was now holding Karuta's katana. The tip of the sword was pressed at Amos' stomach to the point where it had just punctured his shirt, but not the flesh beneath. Nozomi dropped the blade to the ground in surprise, then whirled on Karuta. The darkly-dressed trainer simply smiled at her innocently as he cleaned his glasses on a handkerchief.
"It was worth a shot." Karuta shrugged. He placed his glasses back upon the bridge of his nose and tucked the kerchief away into a pocket. "And what is this I hear about you going along with Amos' plan for revenge on me?"
Nozomi felt a flush come to her face at Karuta's question. She'd been so angry that Amos lied to her that she hadn't kept track of what she was saying. Speaking without paying attention to your words was always a bad idea, but with Karuta, it was downright dangerous. Before she could give any reply, Karuta held up a hand to silence her.
"No need for excuses, I can see the Red String(1) between you two. I understand that you'd go along with whatever this excess of matter would want to do to me." Karuta's grin was more mischievous than ever.
Nozomi blushed an even deeper shade of crimson at this new comment. Amos, in the meantime, just looked confused. He didn't understand the reference to a red string, but it seemed to make Nozomi quite upset by the looks of it. He readied his rock to crush Karuta, but was cut short of his attack by Nozomi coughing into her hand loudly. After purposely coughing a few times, Nozomi motioned for Amos to halt his un-launched attack.
"We're getting off topic here." Nozomi coughed again. Karuta only smirked, as if he were proud of himself for some reason. "What are we going to do now that you two are wanted? We can't go back to Olivine or any city, for that matter."
"Damn right we can't. Those cops'll fire on sight if we stroll into town." Karuta nodded. He turned on his heel and continued on into the woods. "Which is why we aren't going to a city with cops."
Puzzled once more, Nozomi gave silent chase after Karuta to keep up with his naturally breakneck pace. Amos was left standing alone with the rock still held over his head, wondering if he had heard a reference to a red string before. Once he realized Nozomi and Karuta were ditching him, he dumped the rock to the ground and hurried after the two.
Nozomi didn't know where they were going, but she was already sure it was a bad idea.
~~~~
Three days passed.
To Nozomi, these were easily the worst three days of her life. Traveling with Karuta had never been a walk in the park, given his tendency to take the roughest terrain possible when traveling in the wild and the most crowded streets when in public. Now imagine how she felt with having to most as quickly as possible through towns, avoiding almost all contact with people in general, and dealing with Karuta and Amos' near constant bickering or attempts to murder each other.
…Nah, it was probably worse than all that.
The only thing that made the trip livable was the fact that Karuta had decided to be more talkative than Nozomi had ever seen him. She suspected that this was only to annoy Amos, but she was still getting more history on the two. From Karuta's stories, Nozomi found out that not only had Amos come after Karuta after their gym battle, but he made violent attempts several times after that as well.
"So on his fourteenth attack, we finally went a little too far by having at it in a carnival. Amos jumped me outside a snack bar and --" Karuta was cut off by Nozomi's raised hand.
"Question! What was a downer like you doing at a carnival?" She asked innocently.
"I had my reasons. Now shut up." Karuta seemed displeased.
"Stop being so cryptic, you gothic-misfit." Amos interrupted. He leaned over to Nozomi and cupped his hand around his mouth, though his voice was still perfectly audible to Karuta. "He likes cotton candy, but he's too proud to admit it."
Nozomi nearly fell over with laughter on the idea of someone as depressing as Karuta munching on a puffy snack in the middle of a carnival. Amos seemed to enjoy the mental image as well, though Karuta simply crossed his arms sourly and scoffed at the two.
"So I enjoy a bit of sugar every now and then, there's nothing wrong with that." Karuta seemed more miffed than ever as Nozomi wiped a tear from her eye.
"Anyway. Amos and I fought for a while at the faire grounds and a couple bystanders ended up hurt in the crossfire. They called the cops while we were still fighting and we ended up having to make a run for it."
"Right through the Ride-A-Ponyta ring, I might add." Amos chuckled.
"Not my fault, I was following you."
"You still owe me a pair of boots."
"Put it on my tab."
"Anyway…?" Nozomi butted in, not wanting another fight to start between the two.
She had never seen either one act so juvenile in the time she had known them. Karuta seemed to bring out the worst in Amos, though it was the opposite for the Scotsman. Karuta was talking more than ever and even smiled and laughed, though always at Amos' expense. Either way, it was quite a bizarre turn of events for the poor pokemon trainer.
"Anyway, we stuck together for a while after that. It wasn't really by choice, but more out of necessity. Being chased by the same people, we found it more productive to put aside our differences for the time and deal with the situation as well as we could."
"That, and we both knew that if either of us were caught, we'd rat on the other like no tomorrow was comin'." Amos supplied. Karuta conceded with an shrug.
"So how come you two can't put aside your differences now? You did it once and I'd really like not having to break you two up every five minuets." Nozomi grumbled.
"You never asked." Both men answered in sync.
Nozomi twitched on the ground for a moment, then recovered from her facefault with as much grace as she could muster. She was seriously considering just ditching the two and going back off on her own…when she found out where the hell they were, first.
"Where are we going now, might I ask?" Nozomi growled, wanting to change subjects quickly.
"Goldenrod City. It's about half a day's walk from where we are now, though we would've been there already if you didn't have to keep stopping for rest breaks." Amos chided in a parental tone.
"Well pardon me for not being a freak of nature like you two." Nozomi muttered irritably. She noted that both men looked unusually somber at that insult, not returning a biting response as she had been expecting.
"Can we get a move-on already? I'd like to get to the city borders before Pidgey migrate for the south." Karuta demanded as he started off through the woods once more. Amos followed on his heels, also preceded by a sighing Nozomi.
"Now hold on a second. You two are wanted and we're heading to the biggest city in Johto? Do you two want to get shot?" Nozomi asked as she practically jogged to keep up with the two. Karuta's rapid pace and Amos' long stride did not make for easy following.
"Amos is leaving out the important part as always. We're heading to the Goldenrod Underground, not the city itself. As the name suggests, it's under Goldenrod, mainly in the subways." Karuta explained.
"Never heard of it."
"I know. People like you have no reason to know of it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"In the world of pokemon trainers, there's two sides. We call the two classes 'Daylighters' and 'Moonlighters'. You, Nozomi, are a Daylighter. You train pokemon merely for your own amusement, allowing them to be pets or companions for a journey made in your free time."
Nozomi started to reply indignantly to Karuta's assumption of her training habits, but stopped short. While quite blunt, his words were basically true, though there was more to her style than just raising pets. Karuta continued, not allowing her more time to think on the subject.
"Like all things, there's a side that nobody sees. That's what people like Amos and myself are: Moonlighters. We don't go by the standards others use, whether it be pokemon training or otherwise. Unlike yourself, we don't see the reason in following most of the so-called rules of behavior society's made. Because of such ways, we're quite unpopular with Daylighters and have gone almost completely underground for our own comfort." Karuta explained further.
"So what you're telling me is that we're going to a place full of people like you two?" Nozomi asked.
"Some are worse than us." Amos shrugged.
"Okay, now I'm terrified."
"Good." Karuta said. "But you're going to have to get over that real fast. If you can't pass for Moonlighter, even we won't be able to protect you down there. There's a powerful rivalry, though Daylighters don't really know it even exists."
Nozomi felt a shiver run down her spine, though she tried to hide it. They were taking her somewhere that even they wouldn't be able to protect her if she got into trouble? Knowing just how powerful these two men were and thinking that they would be helpless against another force was a situation that she didn't want to even think about, let alone face.
"If you're going to fool anyone, we'll have to teach you a few tricks of the trade." Karuta explained.
"Such as?" Nozomi asked.
Karuta suddenly stopped short and whirled in a sharp turn. His coat flared out as he spun again and whipped out his foot in a high arc aimed directly at Nozomi's head. The surprised girl let out a quick squeak of terror and dropped backwards to the ground to avoid being struck. Karuta simply stood perfectly still, his foot halted in mid-kick a few inches from where her head had previously been.
"First of all, don't do that. People are going to bluff you a lot, so you have to learn to not give in so easily. It's a sure sign of weakness that will get you hurt or worse." Karuta spoke as if her were speaking to a child as he lowered his foot. "Your best bet is to either stand your ground or take the hit. Don't dodge unless you have to."
Amos pulled Nozomi to her feet and helped to dust her off a bit. She glared coldly at Karuta for the scare and cracked her knuckles loudly. Without a word, she lunged forward with a punch at Karuta's nose, trying to test as to whether he would practice what he preached. She found herself with the almost familiar sensation of being thrown through the air again, landing heavily on her butt several feet behind Karuta.
"In the instance that someone you know for a fact is weaker than you attacks, you should put a stop to it immediately, lest people think you're soft." Karuta explained as he ducked under a punch thrown by a now furious Amos.
"How dare you do that to a helpless girl! Have you no heart whatsoever?!" Amos demanded as further his attacks were dodged.
"It's not like that was the first time I've thrown her."
"You've done it before?! How many times!?"
"I lost count after the fourteenth toss." Nozomi chimed as she stood, rubbing her sore rear.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Amos bellowed.
Nozomi sighed heavily as Karuta and Amos started up yet another fight. Maybe she'd just let them kill each other this time. It'd sure save her a lot of grief in the long run. What had she ever done to get such a bad roll in life as this?
~~~~
(1) In the Japanese Culture, it's a common belief that the pinkie fingers of two lovers are tied together by an invisible red string, aka: a Red String of Love. Though I still don't understand how it can be red if it's invisible…
"Okay, tell me again what we're doing now that you two are fugitives?" Nozomi inquired.
"You say it as if this were the first time." Karuta's voice was a bit strained.
"She don't know us vewwy well, do she?" Amos snickered in baby-talk, though his voice had a gritty tone as well.
"Enough already. Can you two please behave like civil human beings for one minute?"
With a great deal of reluctance, Karuta withdrew the tip of his katana from where it was pressed to Amos' jugular. Amos released his grip on Karuta's windpipe and let the smaller man drop almost a foot back to the ground. With this small victory back towards order, Nozomi took it upon herself to act as a barrier between the two fighters so they wouldn't try and kill each other for the tenth time since they lost the chasing authorities in the woods.
"Alright then. You two have some explaining to do. Make with the story telling." Nozomi glowered at each of the men. Amos had the decency to look ashamed while Karuta just glared back at her.
"Karuta, you're the bookkeeper. You tell her." Amos shrugged as he sat himself down under a tree.
"Lazy as ever, ne?" Karuta prodded as he slipped his katana back under his coat.
"The day you tell me how you do that with your coat is the day I stop being lazy." Amos returned.
"And sloth wins out once more."
"Hello! Needing information here!" Nozomi demanded as she got in Karuta's face. Karuta simply placed a hand on the girl's forehead and pushed her back to arm's length without her moving her feet. Nozomi blinked at the grooves her shoes had made in the dirt, but shrugged it off. Things never were easy nor normal with Karuta or Amos…
"Calm down Nozomi, you'll give yourself an ulcer one of these days." Karuta advised.
"I don't need your advice on my health. How do you and Amos know each other?"
"I already told'ja!" Amos chimed from his spot.
"You challenged Amos, Dokuga mauled his Machamp, he wants revenge. Cliff- notes of your history is what I got." Nozomi grumbled. Amos shrugged.
"Is that all he told you? Really Amos, you should be ashamed. Deceiving a nice young woman like Nozomi with that drivel." Karuta chided with a tone of amusement in his voice. He coughed into his gloved fist and straightened his glasses, which happened to be slightly cracked from the fight.
"Like deceit ain't your native tongue?" Amos raised an inquisitive eyebrow to Karuta.
"The whole thing started when I heard about a pokemon gym that had a leader who really knew how to train his pokemon. The idea that trainers should fight with their pokemon is unpopular in more than one sense, mainly because pokemon trainers these days are either little kids on their summer vacations or old folks who want some pet to fill the emotional gap caused by their waning existence."
"Lovely start-up, ain't it? You should do narrations for kiddy shows." Amos added.
"Shut up and let me finish, you waste of carbon."
"Amos, put that branch down!"
Amos grumbled as he tossed a branch of the tree he had been resting under over his shoulder. Nozomi sighed in relief; at least Amos still listened to her to a degree. Karuta looked from the two for a moment, then gave a smirk of realization that made Nozomi feel quite unsettled.
"As I was saying…I wanted to find the leader that had the same style of training that I did. So I headed to Crimson and sought him out. We fought and he lost." Karuta continued.
"You lost? You didn't tell me that." Nozomi blinked as she turned to Amos.
"I did not lose! He's tried to make it sound like he won because of a technicality!" Amos bellowed in sudden outrage as he retrieved his branch.
"All Gyms have to play by League rules, even yours." Karuta said smugly.
"How'd you win the fight?" Nozomi asked as she gave up trying to keep Amos seated.
"Ring-out."
"I hardly call being thrown through a wall a ring-out!" Amos bellowed once more.
"You left the ring, it counted." Karuta crossed his arms over his chest and sidestepped past swinging foliage.
"Anyway, Amos lost but refused to relinquish a badge on his still constant argument. We argued and I eventually got my badge. Mind you that he didn't give it to me, I had to pick-pocket it off him when he was trying to strangle me." Karuta continued.
"You were getting throttled and you still managed to pickpocket him? Geez, are you a klepto or something?" Nozomi asked incredulously.
"No, I just like to steal stuff. It's fun." Karuta grinned.
"Forget I asked."
"Easier done than said."
"So everything Amos told me about his Machamp getting injured was a lie?"
"No, Amos isn't smart enough to make up a story like that. --Put down that rock, Amos.-- He just edited the truth a bit. His Machamp was indeed injured; Dokuga ate one of his arms. What Amos chose to not mention was that the walking mass of testosterone was injured when Amos tracked me down for robbing him and tried to get revenge. Not in the gym fight, as he'd have you believe." Karuta explained.
Nozomi glared at Amos for a moment, who had frozen position with a sizable rock hefted over his head to crush Karuta. Karuta simply grinned over Nozomi's shoulder as the small-in-comparison girl stomped up to Amos and jabbed him in the stomach with a finger.
"You lied to me about something that important?! And here I thought you were my friend, how could you?" Nozomi jabbed Amos a few more times. From behind her, Karuta placed a twig in her hand, which she used to poke Amos further.
"Oh c'mon, you make it sound like I told ya' I'd lost a brother or somethin' with that tone you're using." Amos complained. Nozomi was handed a larger stick and she continued with the jabbing.
"You might as well have! I trusted you and went as far as to go with you to find Karuta! I could understand wanting revenge if he had done that much damage out of cold blood, but you're the one who started the whole thing!"
Nozomi had to halt herself from poking as she realized that she was now holding Karuta's katana. The tip of the sword was pressed at Amos' stomach to the point where it had just punctured his shirt, but not the flesh beneath. Nozomi dropped the blade to the ground in surprise, then whirled on Karuta. The darkly-dressed trainer simply smiled at her innocently as he cleaned his glasses on a handkerchief.
"It was worth a shot." Karuta shrugged. He placed his glasses back upon the bridge of his nose and tucked the kerchief away into a pocket. "And what is this I hear about you going along with Amos' plan for revenge on me?"
Nozomi felt a flush come to her face at Karuta's question. She'd been so angry that Amos lied to her that she hadn't kept track of what she was saying. Speaking without paying attention to your words was always a bad idea, but with Karuta, it was downright dangerous. Before she could give any reply, Karuta held up a hand to silence her.
"No need for excuses, I can see the Red String(1) between you two. I understand that you'd go along with whatever this excess of matter would want to do to me." Karuta's grin was more mischievous than ever.
Nozomi blushed an even deeper shade of crimson at this new comment. Amos, in the meantime, just looked confused. He didn't understand the reference to a red string, but it seemed to make Nozomi quite upset by the looks of it. He readied his rock to crush Karuta, but was cut short of his attack by Nozomi coughing into her hand loudly. After purposely coughing a few times, Nozomi motioned for Amos to halt his un-launched attack.
"We're getting off topic here." Nozomi coughed again. Karuta only smirked, as if he were proud of himself for some reason. "What are we going to do now that you two are wanted? We can't go back to Olivine or any city, for that matter."
"Damn right we can't. Those cops'll fire on sight if we stroll into town." Karuta nodded. He turned on his heel and continued on into the woods. "Which is why we aren't going to a city with cops."
Puzzled once more, Nozomi gave silent chase after Karuta to keep up with his naturally breakneck pace. Amos was left standing alone with the rock still held over his head, wondering if he had heard a reference to a red string before. Once he realized Nozomi and Karuta were ditching him, he dumped the rock to the ground and hurried after the two.
Nozomi didn't know where they were going, but she was already sure it was a bad idea.
~~~~
Three days passed.
To Nozomi, these were easily the worst three days of her life. Traveling with Karuta had never been a walk in the park, given his tendency to take the roughest terrain possible when traveling in the wild and the most crowded streets when in public. Now imagine how she felt with having to most as quickly as possible through towns, avoiding almost all contact with people in general, and dealing with Karuta and Amos' near constant bickering or attempts to murder each other.
…Nah, it was probably worse than all that.
The only thing that made the trip livable was the fact that Karuta had decided to be more talkative than Nozomi had ever seen him. She suspected that this was only to annoy Amos, but she was still getting more history on the two. From Karuta's stories, Nozomi found out that not only had Amos come after Karuta after their gym battle, but he made violent attempts several times after that as well.
"So on his fourteenth attack, we finally went a little too far by having at it in a carnival. Amos jumped me outside a snack bar and --" Karuta was cut off by Nozomi's raised hand.
"Question! What was a downer like you doing at a carnival?" She asked innocently.
"I had my reasons. Now shut up." Karuta seemed displeased.
"Stop being so cryptic, you gothic-misfit." Amos interrupted. He leaned over to Nozomi and cupped his hand around his mouth, though his voice was still perfectly audible to Karuta. "He likes cotton candy, but he's too proud to admit it."
Nozomi nearly fell over with laughter on the idea of someone as depressing as Karuta munching on a puffy snack in the middle of a carnival. Amos seemed to enjoy the mental image as well, though Karuta simply crossed his arms sourly and scoffed at the two.
"So I enjoy a bit of sugar every now and then, there's nothing wrong with that." Karuta seemed more miffed than ever as Nozomi wiped a tear from her eye.
"Anyway. Amos and I fought for a while at the faire grounds and a couple bystanders ended up hurt in the crossfire. They called the cops while we were still fighting and we ended up having to make a run for it."
"Right through the Ride-A-Ponyta ring, I might add." Amos chuckled.
"Not my fault, I was following you."
"You still owe me a pair of boots."
"Put it on my tab."
"Anyway…?" Nozomi butted in, not wanting another fight to start between the two.
She had never seen either one act so juvenile in the time she had known them. Karuta seemed to bring out the worst in Amos, though it was the opposite for the Scotsman. Karuta was talking more than ever and even smiled and laughed, though always at Amos' expense. Either way, it was quite a bizarre turn of events for the poor pokemon trainer.
"Anyway, we stuck together for a while after that. It wasn't really by choice, but more out of necessity. Being chased by the same people, we found it more productive to put aside our differences for the time and deal with the situation as well as we could."
"That, and we both knew that if either of us were caught, we'd rat on the other like no tomorrow was comin'." Amos supplied. Karuta conceded with an shrug.
"So how come you two can't put aside your differences now? You did it once and I'd really like not having to break you two up every five minuets." Nozomi grumbled.
"You never asked." Both men answered in sync.
Nozomi twitched on the ground for a moment, then recovered from her facefault with as much grace as she could muster. She was seriously considering just ditching the two and going back off on her own…when she found out where the hell they were, first.
"Where are we going now, might I ask?" Nozomi growled, wanting to change subjects quickly.
"Goldenrod City. It's about half a day's walk from where we are now, though we would've been there already if you didn't have to keep stopping for rest breaks." Amos chided in a parental tone.
"Well pardon me for not being a freak of nature like you two." Nozomi muttered irritably. She noted that both men looked unusually somber at that insult, not returning a biting response as she had been expecting.
"Can we get a move-on already? I'd like to get to the city borders before Pidgey migrate for the south." Karuta demanded as he started off through the woods once more. Amos followed on his heels, also preceded by a sighing Nozomi.
"Now hold on a second. You two are wanted and we're heading to the biggest city in Johto? Do you two want to get shot?" Nozomi asked as she practically jogged to keep up with the two. Karuta's rapid pace and Amos' long stride did not make for easy following.
"Amos is leaving out the important part as always. We're heading to the Goldenrod Underground, not the city itself. As the name suggests, it's under Goldenrod, mainly in the subways." Karuta explained.
"Never heard of it."
"I know. People like you have no reason to know of it."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"In the world of pokemon trainers, there's two sides. We call the two classes 'Daylighters' and 'Moonlighters'. You, Nozomi, are a Daylighter. You train pokemon merely for your own amusement, allowing them to be pets or companions for a journey made in your free time."
Nozomi started to reply indignantly to Karuta's assumption of her training habits, but stopped short. While quite blunt, his words were basically true, though there was more to her style than just raising pets. Karuta continued, not allowing her more time to think on the subject.
"Like all things, there's a side that nobody sees. That's what people like Amos and myself are: Moonlighters. We don't go by the standards others use, whether it be pokemon training or otherwise. Unlike yourself, we don't see the reason in following most of the so-called rules of behavior society's made. Because of such ways, we're quite unpopular with Daylighters and have gone almost completely underground for our own comfort." Karuta explained further.
"So what you're telling me is that we're going to a place full of people like you two?" Nozomi asked.
"Some are worse than us." Amos shrugged.
"Okay, now I'm terrified."
"Good." Karuta said. "But you're going to have to get over that real fast. If you can't pass for Moonlighter, even we won't be able to protect you down there. There's a powerful rivalry, though Daylighters don't really know it even exists."
Nozomi felt a shiver run down her spine, though she tried to hide it. They were taking her somewhere that even they wouldn't be able to protect her if she got into trouble? Knowing just how powerful these two men were and thinking that they would be helpless against another force was a situation that she didn't want to even think about, let alone face.
"If you're going to fool anyone, we'll have to teach you a few tricks of the trade." Karuta explained.
"Such as?" Nozomi asked.
Karuta suddenly stopped short and whirled in a sharp turn. His coat flared out as he spun again and whipped out his foot in a high arc aimed directly at Nozomi's head. The surprised girl let out a quick squeak of terror and dropped backwards to the ground to avoid being struck. Karuta simply stood perfectly still, his foot halted in mid-kick a few inches from where her head had previously been.
"First of all, don't do that. People are going to bluff you a lot, so you have to learn to not give in so easily. It's a sure sign of weakness that will get you hurt or worse." Karuta spoke as if her were speaking to a child as he lowered his foot. "Your best bet is to either stand your ground or take the hit. Don't dodge unless you have to."
Amos pulled Nozomi to her feet and helped to dust her off a bit. She glared coldly at Karuta for the scare and cracked her knuckles loudly. Without a word, she lunged forward with a punch at Karuta's nose, trying to test as to whether he would practice what he preached. She found herself with the almost familiar sensation of being thrown through the air again, landing heavily on her butt several feet behind Karuta.
"In the instance that someone you know for a fact is weaker than you attacks, you should put a stop to it immediately, lest people think you're soft." Karuta explained as he ducked under a punch thrown by a now furious Amos.
"How dare you do that to a helpless girl! Have you no heart whatsoever?!" Amos demanded as further his attacks were dodged.
"It's not like that was the first time I've thrown her."
"You've done it before?! How many times!?"
"I lost count after the fourteenth toss." Nozomi chimed as she stood, rubbing her sore rear.
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Amos bellowed.
Nozomi sighed heavily as Karuta and Amos started up yet another fight. Maybe she'd just let them kill each other this time. It'd sure save her a lot of grief in the long run. What had she ever done to get such a bad roll in life as this?
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(1) In the Japanese Culture, it's a common belief that the pinkie fingers of two lovers are tied together by an invisible red string, aka: a Red String of Love. Though I still don't understand how it can be red if it's invisible…