Bishonen and Bishojo: Daughter of the Mob

Chapter 6

Aela soon found the Professor's guarantee of free stuff for the first two weeks to be true. She started at an item store a few blocks away that featured a lot of camping gear. She wanted to stay relatively close, since it was getting late in the afternoon, and she wasn't familiar with the town just yet.

The lady at the service counter had her query the Dex, which promptly verified the authenticity to Aela's claim of being a newbie. The service lady, whose name was Ethel by the way, led her to the center of the store with money signs shining in her eyes and whispered the magic words for every girl, "Shopping spree!" With a shopping cart in tow, the redoubtable iron haired lady was picturing the commission she would receive from the government for helping the newbie.

When Aela finally rid herself of the annoying help, she found she still had to make several decisions. She gathered from Hojo's orientation that the bishie world was a variant of the pokemon world. Although there was transportation to be had from city to city, most of the action was to be found on the journey. To make the most of each journey, one had to walk it, which entailed camping. The dark trainer had absolutely no real experience with camping, being cooped up in a city her entire life, and so had to make some logical guesses as to the necessities.

'A roof of some sort over my head, food supplies, and clothes,' she thought ruefully. It hadn't been a problem before, but to be realistic, the thin tank top and loose comfortable shorts were the pj's she was wearing when her mama rousted her out of bed during the crisis. Slipper sandals had been provided somewhere down the line by the bishies from the Dark Jewels Realm, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember when she got them. No one had mentioned anything in Evol because of the warm weather, but Aela certainly did not consider her attire to be outside wear. Plus, they were stained and ripped in some places. How they got that way... probably as a side effect of traveling to this land.

In the end, Aela pushed her little cart to the checkout. Contrary to the avariciousness of many beginning trainers, she did not pile high with all of the accouterments she thought she absolutely needed. Onto the counter went a simple two to three person collapsible dome tent. A larger was passed over on account of carrying weight. She had to carry it after all, it couldn't be too big. As an added bonus, its carry case also doubled as a backpack frame.

Next went a simple Swiss army knife. Aela always wanted one and figured it might be useful. A map of the surrounding cities was plucked from the stands next to the register. For a moment, she held it, hesitating to place it with the rest of her goods. With a free hand, she pulled the Dex from a pocket and cracked it. After the stupid annoying voice greeted her, she brought up the map function and compared it to the one in her hand. Dex had all the salient large features and roads, but the hardcopy had listings of attractions and points of interest along the way, as well as a rough calendar of events. The map went into the pile.

"That's it? A tent, a map, and a Swiss Army knife?" Ethel was incredulous. There went her big commission.

"What's wrong?" Aela asked dryly. She knew how the sales biz worked. "Aren't we given two weeks to make our choices?"

Ethel gaped a bit before regaining her composure. "Yes, well, most trainers just dive right in..." she trailed off.

"And they grab everything in sight, especially the pricey flashy items in the front right? Found this tent on the bottom shelf hidden a bit behind the grand six person inflatable tent."

"Good job?" Aela didn't know if Ethel was congratulating her or just questioning the sense of letting a commission escape her grasp.

A laugh was automatically suppressed, but the dark trainer did allow her dry humor to quirk a smile through. "I might come back if I find I've forgotten something."

Ethel shared the smile, "I'll be here if you do."

Aela arranged her new items into the backpack after the sales clerk tallied them and the trainer signed a slip. It was kinda like a credit card, she mused, except she didn't have to pay it off next month, especially as the paper was slipped into a slot in Dex to get it stamped with her trainer number and other pertinent information such as date and the two week authorization sigil for newbie shopping sprees.

Following that, Aela shouldered her new long-term burden and exited the shop. Looking around, she wondered as to the next step. The lengthening shadows indicated the onset of night. Best to get a room at an inn. Consultation with her new map which included such features made her aware of the little town's two choices. The first, and by far the grander took up a whole block of the center square. In fact, she passed it on her way out of the BishieCenter. The other was situated a little on the outskirts, and catered more to the permanent travelers of the lands than those who wanted to sample town life to the fullest.

As Aela shuddered at the possibility of running into Joe and his Akane in their suits again, she opted for the inn on the outskirts. It took the trainer twenty minutes to successfully skirt the square out of sight and make her way to the worn yet comfortable establishment that would put her up for the night.

Just those few minutes carting around her backpack gave Aela a niggling sense that she wasn't quite fit yet for long term travel. It wasn't that the backpack dug into her shoulders or was ill made, oh no. Aela was beginning to feel an achy strain in her shoulders and back just keeping it balanced. Id felt like shaking its internal head. She was such a city girl.

Opening the glass door to the lobby mildly startled the bishie-less trainer as a tinkly bell at the top chimed with the door's motion. The sound that heralded customers popped the sleep bubble expanding and contracting from the nose of a sleeping female with pink hair done up in weird giant curls around her ears. Straightening up, a bonafide Nurse Joy wiped away sleep from her eyes as her customary smile was fixed into place.

"Hello and welcome!" she chirped. "I'm Hostess Joy! Do you have a reservation for tonight?"

Aela... well, Aela was many things at this point. In the space of one day, she had her sense of personal security shattered, she was transported to a wildly different land, she had met several versions of characters from her favorite series and got a tattoo. She was dropped on her bum in a blatantly evil town and scared by the nemesis of her babysitting days. She was told she could capture said favorite characters and that it was a way of life in this land. She had met a dimension traveler looking for her brother. She found out that no matter where you go, the sales ladies always want a commission. And to top it off, she was tired.

... "No."

A bit of silence as 'Hostess' Joy digested the one word pronouncement.

"Do - you want a room for the night?"

No, Aela was standing there, in an inn, for her health. In just a second, she's going to feel more refreshed and will walk out without getting a freaking room for the night.

"Yes." Raven curls danced as the head they capped nodded an affirmative. She may be many things, but deliberately rude with no real provocation was not one of them.

That affirmation set Joy into bubbly motion. The Dex was soon handed over for its processing stamp and a room key was handed back with it. Room 11 was pointed down the hall and to the left, and Aela trudged off after also placing an order for room service. Much of her energy was sapped just processing much of her changed situations.

Reaching the designated door, the key was inserted, and with only the slightest bit of jiggling, the door opened into a traditional neutral room. As Aela did not have any registered Bishies, there was only a single bed. It was also simply furnished with a veneer plywood table with a phone and a cheaply upholstered but comfy looking chair. The bathroom with its generic features were tucked behind an unobtrusive door next to the exit. All the basic comforts of home were present, right down to the mid-sized TV sitting on a low dresser with empty drawers.

Aela slung her backpack onto the only chair and flopped back onto the coverlet, only to curse as little spheres dug into her lower back. Almost forgot about those. The six Bishieballs still strapped onto the regulation belt had ooched their way around to the small of her back, where the new trainer had apparently 'misplaced' them. After all, out of sight out of mind.

With an inaudible sigh, the girl unsnapped the buckle and used only the minimum of movement to arch her back and pull the belt out. Not looking up, she flung it toward the chair only to hear them thunk against something and fall to the floor. Missed shot. Basketball star she was not.

Lying there and letting the seconds tick away toward night, Aela almost missed the quiet knock on the door heralding room service. It was with great effort that she made it vertical and staggered over to the portal to edible goodness. A look through the peephole almost gave her cavities, as it was none other than 'Hostess' Joy beaming back at her with all her kinds' sugary sweetness. Perhaps it was bred into them like instinctive silence was bred into her line? Nah...

With the now customary Dex Stamp, the precious food changed hands and soon the door was barred to inedible cavity inducing sweetness. Aela felt that if she was going to get painful toothaches, she was darn well going to enjoy the sweets it took to achieve them. But as she wasn't a fan of masochism, her fare was simple, rather indicative of the inn itself, as well as balanced. And soon eaten as it may. With the meal's demise, and the tray placed outside the door for later pickup, the bed was looking more and more inviting. Flopping back down, but underneath the comforter this time, Aela let sleep flirt across her heavy eyelids before succumbing with a few thoughts. One, wondering what was happening with the chibi-Janaelle. Two, how was she going to pull off capturing her first Bishie before the deadline. And third, she had to get some clothes. She was still in her darn pyjamas.

ZZZzzzZZZzzz.

zzzZZZzzzZZZ

ZZZzzzZZZzzz

So deep at night that it was actually early morning, something stirred in Aela's room.

A shadow among shadows appeared and stealthily crept across the floor with whisper quiet padding steps. Dark eyes pierced the gloom to survey the softly breathing figure on the bed and a wicked white smile slashed the small face of the watcher. Closer it crept, eerily alert to any sound of discovery, not only by the sleeping one, but from the shadow's possible pursuers. It rounded the bedside close to the table, and, tapping a foot against something on the floor, halted. A hand darted down and plucked something off the floor. Only the keenest of ears could hear a midnight echo in the breathy giggle.

The shadow moved to the side of the bed. It leaned down to gaze upon the immobile angelic face. A head nodded and a hand reached out. It carried something. A glint of early morning pre-light slid through the curtained window and gleamed faintly off a reflective surface of the object held. It was circular. It was also placed between cupped hands of the sleeper, as she lay instinctively with hands close to her face and knees only lightly drawn in fetal position. With the repressed air of someone getting away with the grandest trick in the book, a small button was depressed on the carefully positioned circle.

As a momentary bright light filled the room, the sleeper twisted to the side, and Aela awoke with the stunning moment of clarity only she was known for. That clarity didn't help her, however, when the sphere that was oh so carefully set in her hands rolled to the side and under an upturned corner of a pillow.

With nothing truly visible that would explain her disturbed sleep, Aela returned to Morpheus's embrace to await a proper morning.

Everything was again silent in the room. And an entity pouted from within distorted space.

------

Morning came with its rosy fingered dawn stabbing through the curtains at just the right angle. Aela awoke with some rather foul language learned at the feet of some of her 'uncles', as she cursed her body's alacrity in waking up. If her mother heard her now...

'Great,' Aela thought silently, 'now I've depressed myself.' The subject of her mother was not something she wanted broached, even in her thoughts.

Deciding there was no way of returning to sleep, Aela rose, zombie-like, as she shuffled off to the bathroom for her morning shower. Half-way through using the provided shampoo and conditioner in one, she was brought to a realization she already knew at least twice before, she - had - no - clothes.

After changing back into her dirty clothes, the dark trainer gave a fastidious shiver as she imagined all of the germs once again hopping onto her nice clean skin. She felt no shame in admitting to an urban upbringing, including the privilege of having a clean set of clothes every day. Absently gathering the only two articles she entered with, the backpack and bishiebelt, Aela finally made it out the door, never giving the rumpled bedding a second glance. After all, that was what an inn's maids were for, right?

So Aela's morning was off to a mild, but relatively bad start. It got worse when only minutes after she'd checked out, Hostess Joy (who looked as if she stayed on call the entire night, thus explaining the bags under her eyes) came running up with a cross look most unbecoming for many Nurse Joys.

"How irresponsible of a trainer are you?!" There was no expectant pause into which an answer could be inserted. "A trainer NEVER leaves a bishieball behind unless its deliberate, and if that's the case, then you're a cruel evil trainer! How you got invited here is a mystery to me. If the administrators are letting in such a mean spirited trainer in, who's already abandoning a Bishie even before they've reached their two week limit - "

"MA'AM!!" Aela finally had enough of the castigation and dirt kicking on her reputation. There was an inward smirk on id when Hostess Joy gaped in shock at the interruption of her rant.

"I don't have a bishie yet," she explained as she reached a hand around her back to twist the belt into a forward position. If she could show the nagging hostess that all her empty bishieballs were present and accounted for...

But there was a problem with that plan of action. Oh, the belt slid forward with ease, no doubt about that, but as Obs. Post patiently counted, id rolled while laughing and imitated a certain Transylvanian someone by going, 'Three, four, five... Five bishballs Ah ah ah!'

"Um..."

The normally kind and implacable Joy merely narrowed her eyes. Holy of holies, she said nothing further, but her expression as she shoved the delinquent bishieball into the dark trainer's hands gave away the impression that she was going to watch Aela. Very closely.

And so, as obsidian eyes rested on the occupied sphere bemusedly, Aela was left to her lonesome on a side street still pretty deserted of regular townspeople due to the early hour. A finger depressed the ubiquitous button, and the sphere cracked open with a flash of blue light. The light extended into a bolt and grounded itself a few feet away, only to dissipate. What the light revealed...

"Man, Aela," a childlike soprano with only the hints of sepulcher thunder sounded from a familiar two foot little body. "I thought you'd let me out long before this!"

There was someone Aela had always wanted to mimic, but there had never been so apt of an occasion as now.

"Oh my!"

The sentiments were echoed more explicitly by id's 'oh $h!+'.

"C'mon, it's not all that bad! After all, who in this world can say they've got such a cute chibi as me?" Janaelle, for it was the little minx Aela had first conscious contact with, winsomely whined while clasping her hands underneath her chin.

Aela took a moment to swallow her first and even her second automatic response. What finally came out, "How did you get here? How did you get in my bishieball?"

The little brat perked up for such easy questions.

"I rode the webs! There're always webs in all the lands, its just anywhere away from the Realm that they get trickier to jump." She looked like she wanted a cookie for answering correctly.

Aela wanted to sigh, she dearly did, but resubmitted her second question. "And the ball?"

A toe dragged in the dirt dissembling a bit. "Well, I wanted to stay with you... I know all the 'Uncle' Saetans were expecting me to choose one of them for a secondary parental guardian, but I thought you would do fine! You like me already, and you said I could call you 'Aela' since we were friends!"

"This has nothing to do with getting away from your Daemon babysitter?" Janaelle's imprinted bishieball was set into motion, rolling fluidly around the fingers, palm, and back of Aela's hand absentmindedly. It's hypnotic movement a result of a childhood obsession with Labyrinth's Jareth and his habit with the crystals, she had no idea of the retribution she escaped because of its entrancing qualities.

In fact, hairs on the back of her neck rose as she finally sensed an extra pair of eyes on her. When she looked behind, it was only to find said babysitter Daemon staring at her hands deftly manipulating the bishieball.

Aela's, "I really wish you'd stop sneaking up on me." jolted the mesmerized Warlord Prince out of his watchful reverie. Finally cognizant of the danger she now posed as a fully oriented trainer with a bishieball in hand, he snarled a command, forgetting his own 'danger' for the pressing need to protect a female in his care . "Don't you dare throw that at the chibi!"

The moving sphere halted, as its holder processed the ramifications of the order against what had already happened. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, Aela merely placed the ball back on her belt and brought a hand to her temple in a futile attempt to quell an oncoming migraine. It was officially a bad morning.

"Alright, I'm hungry, so if you want to join me, I'm going to try to find a restaurant."

Gold eyes sparked. There was a little confusion contained within, as the girl obviously knew he and the chibi were fair game, and yet, kept her zeal contained. Her gruff but polite offer of food was also a surprise, but he didn't want to go waltzing around a human town with his charge. It felt like hanging a placard around his neck saying 'Fresh Meat'. And somehow, the chit was following his train of thought!

"If you're with me, everyone will think you're already captured."

Janaelle also piped up, soundly defeating his secondary concern, "And if anyone asks about Aela having a chibi, we can say that YOU'RE my guardian! Or even my dad, if we have do. Not that I want to claim you as my dad, but it would divert questions."

A growled 'Fine' was Aela's only answer and as the trio began walking busier streets as the morning progressed, she found his scowl and the reputation of an angry Warlord Prince more than cleared a path for the two preceding females.

They found an out of the way eatery just opening up for the morning and claimed a table in the rear. Aela deliberately lead them away from the tables by the large bay windows, as she didn't want to advertise her "capture" of a rare and renowned warlord prince, let alone the implication of having a chibi Janaelle with her. The mini Witch took the opportunity to climb in Aela's lap and manually pull the trainer's arms around her form. It was bad enough when the sleepy waitress inclined an eyebrow at the chibi's presence while gathering drink orders.

A minute's wait to ensure sufficient distance from their table had been obtained, the two adults of the group simultaneously turned their heads and directed laser glares at the other. Aela took the lady's prerogative and went first.

"I did not set out to capture her." The 'her' was directly implied. It did, however, engender a response in the male as he visible swelled up in ire, about to unleash a rant of explosive vitriol at what conclusions could be drawn from that sentence.

The soon to be impressive rant was cut off however, when faced with a set of swirling sapphires swimming with warning and onyx pools brimming with anger and sincerity.

Daemon felt cut off at the knees as he was dealt a double blow without even a fist raised. But he had to try, if only for the chibi's mother, who had partially raised him.

"Release her." It wasn't quite a demand, but only the keenest of ears could have heard the begging undertone.

A reluctant hand detached from its hold around the chibi before reaching behind her back. The belt of bishieballs had again slid around. Those questing fingers, however, found a smaller set, which grasped hers with a strength unbelievable from such small digits.

"No," Janaelle was determined, her voice firm, but there was a slight moisture welling in her eyes as they gazed into Daemon's confused gold.

"Janaelle," he warned, not sure why his charge would want to stay bonded to this trainer. Yes, the chit seemed to care for the chibi and had a certain draw about her... Like prickly wounded innocence, if he had to put a classification to it, but why would the Witch candidate deny her freedom for that?

Aela pulled her hand back from Janaelle's grip, and away from the belt, to the chibi's relief, before running her fingers through soft curls of hair the color of old gold. After the chibi in her lap relaxed with a purr against the trainer's larger frame and small arms around Aela's waist, the question was asked.

"Why are you doing this?"

"Because if I get released, then Aela has to go home. Grandpa Saetan said 'one bishie at all times' right?"

Aela was surprised and a little startled. She had forgotten that from Professor Hojo's lecture, and from what he had indicated, going back would mean she would be returned to the exact place, and possibly the exact time.

Janaelle felt the shudder that wracked her body and those strong little arms tightened the slightest, trying to give as much comfort as possible.

Daemon, too, sensed the reaction and started drawing conclusions; connecting the dots, if you will. His mind cranked into high gear, trying to balance all of the conflicting needs. But as the precision instrument that his brain was, it only clicked to one solid resolution that would presumably satisfy all parties. It would require a great sacrifice on his part though...