Chapter 10

Gaveriel was doing his best to be patient. That was saying a lot, as he was normally a very, very patient person, patient enough to endure his sister's constant tangents and the painstakingly slow process of undoing Team Rocket's embroidery stitch by painful stitch. Yes, patience came as second-nature to him, the way others would regard painting, writing, or any other skill they had honed to near-perfection over the years. Muscle memory.

The girl, Elva, however, had been rattling their ears off with questions about their lives and missions, and the other one, Visora, had been nothing but rude the entire trip. It had been an hour since they'd managed to drag themselves over the rock ledge, and now Gaveriel was counting down the seconds until they could drop the two off at Lavender Town.

"How many photos do you guys have? What about videos? Are they in black and white? The videos, I mean, but yeah, the photos too. And how good are your sound clips? I like working with videos… what kind of camera do you use? When are you going to turn them in? Where are you headed after this? What are they up to? How do you know? Do they really all wear the same thing? What kind of Pokemon do they steal? Do the police know that Team Rocket isn't really disbanded? Why does everyone think they're still broken up if they're operating? When was their first new operation? Were you there? Did you get pictures?"

He didn't dislike them—Elva seemed genuinely nice, if a bit vacuous, and Visora was bitingly intelligent, even if she was cynical as hell—but he was not used to this much exposure to females. Ciara was usually more than enough. His sister was always harassing him to get a girlfriend, in spite of the fact that they were only eleven and thirteen respectively, and warning him that he would die an old maid. It was a running gag between the two of them; he'd call her a crotchety old geezer—she'd call him a whiny old nag. He'd call her a rambunctious little boy—she'd call him a worrisome mother hen. Their humor was rather skewed, but they understood each other, and that was all that counted.

Ciara had nudged him in the ribs after they'd brought Visora and Elva to their flat and left to scope the area out for followers, saying something along the lines of, "The red-head is cute! Ask her for her number!" to which Gaveriel had replied, "I don't even know her, Ci." A little while back, she had nudged him in the ribs again and hissed under her breath, "Never mind, bro… the girl's insufferable," to which Gaveriel had laughed.

Actually, Gaveriel had enjoyed maneuvering his way around her clever little conversation traps. He'd done a lot of sweet-talking as a kid and even more negotiating as a teenager, and was quite up to par on the tricks of the trade, what and what not to say. It was rather nice to meet someone that had the ability to run him around in circles chasing after a peaceable ending that didn't exist—and it was even more of a triumph to avoid the ending they wanted you to fall into. He wondered if Visora had ever had someone figure out her strategy before.

Now that he thought of it, she'd been rather quiet for the last hour. He wasn't complaining—although, now Elva wouldn't quit bombarding them with questions.

"We've got assloads of photos and videos… and yeah, they're black-and-whites, we're tight on cash… the sound clips are pretty nasty too, and… no, I don't know what brand we have. Gav, do you know? No? Okay, well… we're gonna turn them all in when we get real good, hard evidence. It'll knock 'em flat off their feet so they can't deny it. We're going to Celadon next, right bro? We're not sure yet, but we'll find out soon enough. Well, they wear different stuff when they go in to the meetings, but they all change into the black suits after. Real dorky looking. The Rockets want any kind of rare Pokemon that'll get them money and—yeah, just money is pretty much it. The police are dumb and people will continue to deny it until it's shoved in their faces. 'cause they like being ignorant. It's easier than owning up to something unpleasant. We heard about their operation. Yeah, we were actually there. No, didn't get shots—we were way young. I don't even remember it, but I'm sure Gav does—right, bro?"

Gaveriel was thrown out of his daze again by his sister's address. "Yeah?"

"I said, do you remember the first new Rocket operation we saw?"

Gaveriel missed a step and covered his stumble with a jump over an obtrusive rock. Once he'd regained his footing he regarded his sister with wary, questioning eyes. She seemed desperate to get Elva off her back, though, and beseechingly made hilarious expressions of agony. Visora, who was behind him, seemed to see her contortions as well, because she snorted.

"Well, I was really young, but I remember some stuff," he said. "Ci and I were there with our—with our parents," he said casually, pulling ahead of the pack a bit and forcing them to keep pace with him. "They were sitting in on the meeting, because naturally they didn't know it was Rocket affiliated until halfway through the thing. We were there because they couldn't get a sitter in time or something." He could feel eyes on the back of his head and wondered if he wasn't doing a good enough job at keeping the tension out of his voice. "Well, anyway, so the 'rents are listening to this proposition by the then-Boss of the Rockets, and when they start to realize what exactly they're being asked to join, they stand up and walk out. End of story," he said, pulling back to regard two pathways for a moment. Ciara muttered, "left one," and Gaveriel started down it. That was always the part he couldn't remember. "All I really recall is a few guys in black suits and sitting at a long wood table and voices talking about stuff. I was drawing on Dad's notebook, since it was boring stuff."

"What I would give to remember what they were saying!" Ciara lamented, folding her arms behind her head sunbather-style and gazing up at the late afternoon sky. "Imagine the goldmine of dirt we'd have on those weasels then!"

There was an intake of air beside him, and Gaveriel braced himself for a verbal assault from Visora. When nothing came, he turned to regard her questioningly. She was looking rather disturbed, face twisted into something like annoyed repression and indecision. She caught him looking at her, and for a moment his dark brown eyes locked with her leaf-green ones. A second later they looked away and continued walking, not acknowledging each other anymore.

And then Elva began her talking again. The questions went on and on as the troupe traveled, and Gaveriel noticed that Ciara was getting less and less descriptive in her answers as the minutes wore on.

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They'd stopped to rest at a stream for a while, and the two girls seemed overwhelmed with relief. Gaveriel wasn't sure where Elva got her endless bounds of energy, but it was apparent that even she had her limits. The brown-haired girl was dipping her entire face into the running water, holding her breath for an impressive amount of time before surfacing and shaking her hair out before returning below the water.

Visora was leaning up against a tree, eyes fluttering as she breathed. Gaveriel and Ciara were used to the heat, but were still sweating a decent amount.

"So, what are you guys headed to Lavender for?" he asked conversationally, not really expecting Elva to hear, but directing the question to both of them.

Sure enough, it was Visora who answered. "We were supposed to be getting actual Pokemon experience out here—go figure," she said, laughing in a derisive way. "But we figure that Lavender's Pokemon tower might be a good place to check out some strong ones, too."

Gaveriel cocked an eyebrow. "The Pokemon tower? Wow, you're brave."

Visora grinned, seeming to regain her charisma. "What, a big strong man like you is afraid of the Pokemon tower?"

Gaveriel smiled benignly back. "Oh, terrified, absolutely."

Ciara laughed, joining them by the tree. "It's haunted, you know."

"Well, let's hope the only things that are "haunting" it are Gastlys and Haunters," she said, and stretched abruptly in mid-sentence, interrupting herself with a yawn. "Are we almost there?"

"Pretty close now," Gaveriel said. "It can't be more than a fifteen minute walk now."

"Well, let's get a move on… once the mermaid over there decides to breath," Visora tacked on, rolling her eyes. "I swear, if humans could breath water, she'd disappear into the ocean and I'd never see her again."

"Water trainer?" Gaveriel took a wild stab.

"You got it," Visora sighed. "I prefer plant types myself. I don't know, it's just I've never really loved the water and all… I mean, it's okay, but… oh, wonderful," she said, cutting herself off and laughing. "I sound like my sister."

"You sound like my sister, too," Gaveriel added, which earned him a smack from Ciara. "Well, she does."

Elva decided to shake her head out again then, and Visora called, "Hey, Starmie, come on, we're going again."

The water-logged girl bounded up and shook her head out before carefully wringing the wet ends of her wavy hair out. Her hair was the type that curled when wet, and now it hung in many nicely-formed ringlets. "Gotcha!" she said cheerily, bounding over to them and spraying them with tiny beads of water in the process. Ciara shrank back, and Gaveriel laughed.

The four of them really were dysfunctional, he thought. Ciara was a fire trainer all the way—she was obsessed with Vulpixes, Flareons and Growlithes as a child, and had a pyro streak a mile wide. Gaveriel always left it up to her to start the camp fires, as the girl had a knack for causing sparks with any substance she could get her hands on, a skill that served her both literally and metaphorically.

Gaveriel, on the other hand, was a rock trainer who occasionally took in a ground-type, since the two were similar enough. It really was amazing how the four of them played on each other's type weaknesses: Gaveriel could beat Ciara, who could beat Visora, who could beat Elva, who could beat him.

Deciding that he was reading far too much into the matter, Gaveriel climbed to his feet and stretched, hearing the satisfying crick-pop in his neck as he did so. "Well, we ready to book it? We'll have you guys in Lavender well before sundown if we make good time."

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True to his word, the four of them reached Lavender Town roughly twenty minutes later, when the sun was just considering sinking below the horizon for the day. Feeling out of place in the dismal town, Gaveriel stopped at the sign what welcomed people to the uninviting place and leaned against it.

"Well, this is where we get off," he said, giving the two girls a smile. "It's been a pleasure, and if you ever need anything, we're just a hike away."

Visora laughed at that, and he could tell that she knew they'd probably never see each other again. Gaveriel didn't know why it made him somewhat melancholy, but he had learned a long time ago not to read into anything too much; he found the more he did that, the more he made embarrassing mistakes.

"Well, thank you for putting up with the long walk," Visora said. "It was a good work out, at the very least. And thank you for not going comatose under the onslaught of the demon-child's 'ten-million-two-hundred-and-fifty-three question attack', too."

"Hey!" Elva quipped indignantly at her side.

"Not a problem," Ciara said. "And, hey… if you guys ever want to help us out on some Team Rocket thwarting…" she threw a wink at them, and Visora and Gaveriel reacted exactly the same—they shot Ciara a look that clearly said "What the heck?"

Elva, on the other hand, seemed to light up like a string of Christmas lights at the idea. "REALLY? You'd let us help you? Oh, Vi, that would be so, so cool! Oh, can we?"

"Um, Elva, dear, I do believe they were kidding, and even if they weren't, the answer would be no." Visora looked at Gaveriel and he suddenly realized that she'd saved him from getting into an argument with his sister. If she hadn't spelled the answer out so clearly he would have had to ask Ciara if she was serious, and she would have gotten defensive. Impressed at Visora's sudden act of kindness—through manipulation, yes, but for a kind purpose nonetheless—Gaveriel regarded her. They seemed to still be on uneasy terms, but at least they were undisputed equals—even if only they two knew it.

"Well, we'd better get going before it gets too dark," Gaveriel said offhandedly. "See you around, ladies. Visora, Elva." He acknowledged them each with a nod.

"See you, Gav and Ci," Elva said, seeming deflated at the denial of adventure.

"Laters," Ciara called in an uppity way that reminded Gaveriel for a second of Elva.

"Bye," Visora said, and Gaveriel noticed that she was looking at him exclusively.

With that said and done, the two sets of siblings turned their backs on each other and started on their respective roads, one heading into the fading sunset and one into the gathering twilight.