Pokémon: 1 Deaths: 0
{Monua 17th, 1:02AM}
{S.S. Conway}
Blue kept a carefully neutral face as he went for a 'midnight stroll'. There were multiple reasons for which he couldn't sleep, having spent all day with Galactic Energy and Hoenn disasters and Saylee's uncanny talent for getting into colossal trouble rolling around in his head over and over again. But there was another reason he'd- purposely- stayed up, and now he was out to make it one reason less keeping him awake.
Of course he'd been pissed when he was told that he couldn't take his team onto the ship, even if he promised not to release them from their Pokéballs. He couldn't afford to wait for the next ship, and he sure as fuck couldn't afford to go to Sinnoh to kick some Galactic ass without his Pokémon. In the end he'd gone to buy a small sack, dropped his Pokéballs in it, and entrusted it to Pete before returning to board the cruiser. His Pidgeot was strong and fast enough that he could probably keep up with the cruiser and fly from a distance for a good while, even if not forever. So now Blue just hoped it'd be late and dark enough that he could discreetly get Pete to land, return him to his Pokéball, and sneak the sack of Pokéballs back to his room.
Heading to the back of the ship, Blue glanced around and made sure that he was alone before wordlessly raising an arm. It took a minute, but eventually he heard the quiet flapping of wings, and felt a tiny gust going in opposite direction of the wind as Pete tried to hover over the floor.
"Thanks Pete, you're fantastic," Blue said, taking the sack out of the Pidgeot's claws.
"Damn right I am, but now I'd appreciate it if I could rest because that was a long trip," Pete replied tiredly.
"Nah, I think I'll tie you up and make you Gyarados-fodder," Blue quipped, digging around in the sack. He finally found Pete's Pokéball and returned the eye-rolling Pidgeot as requested. He pulled the remaining Pokéballs out of the sack, clipping them to his belt one after the other, tugging on the edge of his coat to ensure that his team was covered and hidden. The sack would be too suspicious and one of the first things he'd be asked about if he ran into anyone. Now that he didn't need it anymore, he folded it and stuffed it best as he could into a coat pocket. Maybe he'd have thought of throwing it out into the ocean if he hadn't had a bit of a thing against littering.
He started making his way back to his room, taking the long way and nearing the front of the ship.
He momentarily stopped in his tracks and frowned when he heard a weird thump.
Ignoring the way to his room and instead deciding to continue toward the front, following the muffled sounds of what he thought was probably a struggle. When he finally had a full view of the ship's front, he saw two people on the floor trying to pin each other down; one of them was a rich-looking guy with black and white hair and a long, blue coat with high lapels and a bunch of frills- the other was a scrawny-looking person with green hair and a grey jumpsuit.
The one in the ugly blue coat clearly had the upper hand, but seeing the outfit combination of the other made Blue snarl and step in.
He shamelessly gave the grunt a solid punch in the head.
The frilly one paused before carefully standing up, pulling the dazed grunt to their feet and immediately proceeding to lock the grunt's arms behind their back. Fuck, he was tall. "Thank you," the frilly one said. His accent was strange, like someone from a different region trying to sound like they were from Kanto and not quite getting it right. "I appreciate the help."
"I'm at the stage where I'll smack the shit out of anyone wearing that kind of outfit," Blue said darkly, folding his arms. "What happened?"
"Midnight stroll. I quite enjoy the sea breeze. Had it been warmer I would've thought we were still in Hoenn." So this guy's from Hoenn, maybe? Blue thought. It'd explain the other half of his accent. "Unfortunately, it seems I wasn't the only person to have considered that," the frilly one continued, visibly a little disgruntled. "I was standing by the rail here when this young man snuck up from behind and assaulted me. Then he proceeded to try and throw me overboard while I was disoriented."
"You were an interference!" the grunt in his grip spat.
"An interference to what, your view of the ocean?" the frilly one snapped back. He straightened and cleared his throat when his Hoenn accent slipped a bit more.
"What were you planning?" Blue asked, glaring at the grunt.
"Oh, nothing much, just blowing up the cruiser," the grunt replied smugly.
"You what?!" Blue hissed. The grunt suddenly whined in pain and twisted a little. The taller man had a surprisingly dark look on his face. He was probably holding the grunt's arms at an 'unpleasant' angle.
"I suggest we inform the crew," the blue-coated man said. "Perhaps they can then contact the police and-" There was an odd pause, but it only lasted a couple seconds.
"What's going on here?"
Blue turned around and saw a dark-haired woman, wearing a red hat and coat with an insignia that looked kind of like a ranger's. Oh, good. "Just a gym leader about to dump a criminal on the crew. Planning to make them call the police and take this scrawny dude in for questioning," he shrugged, ignoring the grunt's growls at being labeled as 'scrawny'.
The ranger made a face. "Good luck with that," she said grimly. "The police are worthless there. Just about anything relating to the Galactic Energy Corporation gets either ignored entirely, pinned on someone else, or quietly swept under the rug."
"Just what I fucking needed," Blue cursed. The ranger offered an empathetic sigh. "So now what, we entrust this guy to the crew and tell them not to contact the police?"
"Eh, they'll be contacted, I'm just telling you not to expect much from them."
"Not like I can just barge into the station and threaten them," Blue grumbled. He turned to the tall, frilly man again. "I trust you to help me drag this man to the crew."
"Y-Yes, of course," he replied with a nod.
"I'm coming with you," the ranger said. The grunt obviously didn't agree with their plans and started kicking up a fuss. The tall man holding him, however, was doing a damn good job at keeping the criminal in his grasp as they walked. They didn't have to go all the way, though, as they'd visibly drawn attention and someone came to meet them halfway.
"The captain saw the struggle happening on the bow and called for one of us to go check," the crew man explained. Well you sure took a damn long time to get off your ass, Blue thought with a scowl. "Mr Irving, are you injured anywhere?"
"I promise to drop by a hospital once the cruiser has docked in Canalave," the tall man said.
"Wait, back up," Blue interrupted, "did he call you Irving? Like Archie Irving?" The blue-coated man stared at him.
"No, that is Juan Irving, gym leader of Sootopolis," the crew member corrected. "You know, from Hoenn."
"The only Hoenn guy that I've met so far is that cryptic Steven bastard, I wouldn't recognise anyone else," Blue groaned, rolling his eyes.
"Would you mind leading us to where your crew's main quarters?" the ranger asked. "That way we can hand off this one to you guys. What was he trying to do, by the way?" she added, turning to the gym pair.
"Blow up the ship, apparently," the Juan guy replied bitterly.
The color visibly drained from the crew guy's face. "Right then, we'll take this one and watch him, and I'll send out a couple people to search the cruiser for explosives..."
"We'll follow you," the ranger nodded. "Irving there's got a good grip, I think it'd be a shame if he let go." Juan's lips twitched up into a smirk for a couple seconds. The crew man nodded and started leading them toward the staff area.
Blue walked just a few steps closer to the Hoenn leader when the latter gave the grunt a small shove forward to make him move it. "Juan Irving, huh? I'm Blue Oak, gym leader in Viridian, Kanto. Heard about the stuff that went down over there. Kanto'd be sending more people to help out if we didn't need some to rebuild in our own region, too. Sorry about that."
"We appreciate all the aid that has been sent, no matter how big or small," Juan replied softly. "Thank you."
"D'you mind if I ask a bunch of questions about the main guys responsible?" Blue asked. "The Aqua and Magma leaders, I mean. Are you related to that Archie guy at all?"
"Archie is my younger brother. I am also somewhat familiar with the Hylands, although my contact with both parties has been rather scarce in the past ten years," Juan said in a carefully neutral tone. "You are still welcome to ask any questions you'd like, and I'll do my best to answer. Are you searching for him?"
"I guess I'd kick his ass if I saw him, but I'm not out looking for him specifically," Blue answered dryly. "I've got a gut feeling that what I'm about to deal with might end up worse than what happened in Hoenn if I don't do anything about it. And I'm not gonna have anyone who can gather wild Pokémon together to fish out bodies and ruins. You were lucky to have Wallace with you for that." Juan gave him a confused look. Blue only gave the crew guy and the ranger a quick glance. "Saylee told me about him, so I know who he is."
"Well, he's the current Champion of Hoenn."
"I meant the other thing."
Juan stared.
Blue tried not to frown. Blue was making a very clear reference to Wallace's ability to make water Pokémon listen to him, and the fact that Juan didn't look like he knew what Blue was talking about raised a flag in the Kanto gym leader's head. He couldn't exactly say anything clearer than that with the other three around, not on the subject of avatars. According to Saylee, Wallace was the avatar to some small sea deity called Manaphy and had ascended years ago, long before Lugia and Ho-Oh, and Juan had supposedly known for just as long. He'd specifically mentioned that he heard from Saylee, so he'd have hoped that it would click. Either Wallace still had other big roles on top of those that he didn't about, or…
"You know, in the same context as Archie and Marc," Blue added as casually as possible.
The fact that Juan still didn't seem to catch on immediately raised a second flag in Blue's head. "Oh! Right, yes, I see now," the blue-coated man nodded eventually.
"Glad you do," Blue said placidly.
They arrived in front of the staff's living quarters- or at least some part of it- and another crew person opened the door, warily listening to their story before inviting them all in. The tall man finally got to hand off the Galactic grunt and the scrawny, green-haired criminal was taken "somewhere safe". The crew agreed on five people to dispatch around the ship to investigate and search for anything that could harm the ship, two of them getting ready to head to where the struggle happened.
When the tall man politely bowed to leave, Blue snatched his arm. "You're not going anywhere," Blue said darkly. "There's no way you're the real Juan!"
"Wait, what?" one of the crew asked, doing a double-take.
Blue heard a faint 'Tch', and the next thing he knew the blue-coated man had slipped out of Blue's grip a whole lot easier than expected. He'd have expected some sort of denial first, instead of immediately running off. Although Blue was somewhat relieved to see that, when someone ran away for no apparent reason, the crew's first instinct was to at least give chase.
"You stay here and make sure the Galactic guy is taken to the police in Canalave!" Blue shouted to the ranger before following the others out.
There weren't a whole lot of places for a man to hide on a cruiser, and especially not for a man of his size. Rather than losing sight of him and being made to search, they eventually all found themselves at the front of the ship, with the blue-coated man easily balancing on the rail and facing his pursuers.
"Give it up!" one of the crew members shouted. "We've got you cornered!"
"Are you sure about that?" the tall man smirked smugly. "All I see behind me is a wide, open space..."
"We're still two hours away from Canalave, there's no way you'd survive getting there on your own if you jumped!" another barked. Despite the still relatively dark sky, Blue could see the frilly man's smirk widen.
"Who said I'd get there alone?" he grinned provokingly, pulling out a Pokéball. There were a few gasps as they all caught sight of it, and one of them lunged forward to grab him- but the man instantly bounced over the rail, dropping into the water. A third staff member immediately started shouting out orders at the scattering crew to prepare to retrieve him. Blue dashed through the mass and leaned on the rail, only to watch the man surf away on the back of something big and black and damn fast.
"That's...That's a Sharpedo, isn't it?" one of the female crew members asked hesitantly, watching the two shapes slowly widen the gap between then and the cruiser. "I mean, it's the size of a Mossdeep Wailmer, but Wailmer don't have dorsal fins. I've never seen a Sharpedo that huge...!"
"When you can, tell the authorities that you've seen Archibald Irving and that he's headed for Sinnoh," Blue said firmly. The lady gasped when he lifted his coat just enough to reach for the Pokéballs on his belt and released his Alakazam and Blastoise. "Adam, I need you to port me down onto Sam's back so I don't have to take a swim in the middle of the night during almost-winter. Sam, get ready to chase that other guy!"
"Understood," Adam nodded.
Blue turned to the lady again, noticing that several others had stopped to stare at him and his Pokémon as well. "Aren't you people glad I ignored your dumb rule about battle Pokémon not being allowed on the ship? Maybe you should consider revising that for, y'know, Leaders, rangers, handy people like us," Blue notioned, before Adam warped him down onto the Blastoise's shell. He immediately returned his Alakazam.
"Wouldn't it be faster to chase your target down with Pete?" Sam asked, starting to swim forward anyway.
"He's already been flying for ages just to follow the ship, I don't think he's got enough energy for a second round yet," Blue replied. "Closest city from here is Canalave, so that guy's probably gonna head there first. I can switch over to Pete when we arrive and he's a bit more rested."
"Gotcha."
{Monua 17th, 8:34AM}
{Canalave}
The first light of dawn was just barely coming up from beyond the horizon when Blue and Sam finally arrived near Canalave. They'd traveled quite a distance, with Sam speeding as much as she could, though they never actually caught up to the Aqua Leader and his large Sharpedo. The cruiser they'd jumped from had long since vanished out of their sight and probably wouldn't arrive for another few hours. On the other hand, the Aqua Leader had arrived a fair amount of time before them too, which had probably given him more than enough time to vanish into the crowd or try to escape the city.
Blue unclipped Sam's Pokéball from his belt. "Thanks for carrying me all the way here," he said, returning her.
He set the Pokéball back in its place and picked out a different one so he could release his Pidgeot. "Hey Pete, how're you feeling? Did you get enough rest?"
"Enough to do whatever favour you're about to ask of me," Pete replied, giving his wings a stretch. The fact that he didn't fold them back against his body suggested he was ready and inviting Blue to hop on.
"Turns out the leader of Team Aqua was on that ship, so Sam and I tried to give chase, but we never caught up," Blue explained, easily climbing up on the Pidgeot's back. "Think you can fly up and find a really tall guy with tan skin and a frilly blue coat?"
"I'm sure I don't need to actually answer that," Pete said placidly. After a few powerful strokes, Blue and Pete were already high up enough that they could see most of Canalave in a single glance. Blue couldn't make out any actual faces, and only just recognised Byron's gym around the southern end of the city from the last and only time he'd been to Sinnoh before, but Pete had much better eyes and could probably pick the Aqua Leader out from the mass if he was still around.
"He doesn't look like he's in the city," Pete reported, raising his head a little. A second later, however, Pete's gaze snapped slightly to the side, past Byron's gym. "I see someone between the trees. Long, blue coat. Running and heading further south."
"Hair color?"
"I'm seeing some black and white."
"That's our guy. Time to follow him and swoop down once he's past the forest."
"Only if you don't fall off," Pete quipped. Blue rolled his eyes.
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I can't exactly promise that Mangaluva and I would actually have the time to write it out, but I've been wondering recently if there are any characters you guys would be interested in knowing more about? I was mostly thinking of canon characters and how they would've each changed in our Nuzlocke environment, but maybe you'd be curious about some of the OCs or cameos? XD
So far there's one other character I can guarantee you'll be seeing some backstory for (if you follow my tumblr blog then you know who I mean, pft) and I guess you'll be finding out more about both Archie and Blue in here, but I just kind of wondered if there's a favorite character you have and that didn't really get a lot of attention in our previous fics.
ARCHIE
Shanks the Sharpedo
BLUE
Sam the Blastoise, Pete the Pidgeot, Adam the Alakazam, Gary the Arcanine