The ship that I am on is a military vessel, so it goes without saying that it would be foolish to expect our rooms to be held to the same standards as a five star luxury cruise. Everyone's rooms are the standard military bunks. It's not something that all civilians can easily get used to because the rooms are not exactly spacious, but I could tell that the crew did their best to help us adjust to the seafaring life for the coming weeks out at sea and they had also obviously cleaned our bunks as best as they could before we boarded the ship.
I'm not going to complain despite finding it a little difficult to adjust to this "military life". The crew are soldiers, not our servants. They had already gone beyond their duty in my opinion.
Most people understood the circumstances that we were in and were not picky about our accommodations. We understood things could have been worse off for us, especially after the Battle at Castelia and how Reshiram nearly scorched the city and quite possibly the entire region if it wasn't stopped in time. We were already very glad to be able to leave Unova so soon after ships were finally able to enter and leave Unova. In fact, Hoenn was the first region to be able to successfully extract their people from Unova, which goes to show just how efficient the region is in protecting its citizens.
The ship does have enough beds but due to the fact that one bunk has a predetermined number of beds and the odd sizes of some of the civilian groups, it resulted in the situation where some of the bigger groups have to be split up in terms of bunking arrangements and some of us have to bunk with complete strangers due to the lack of rooms. Not all rooms come with bathrooms too, most didn't. Bathrooms are a shared common space for all passengers and they are clearly divided into men and women.
My assigned bunk is a bunk with four beds arranged in a way where there's a double decker bed on one side of the room and another double decker bed on another, which is sort of perfect for us because I can simply share it with Sebastian, Flannery, and Norman. Sebastian and Norman took one side of the bunk and Flannery and I took the other. Every bed has a curtain for the user's privacy and every bed has an assigned cabinet to store our belongings. Four beds and four cabinets for the four inhabitants of this bunk.
Again, not very spacious.
One cabinet per person is definitely not enough to store all of our belongings. Most of our stuff ended up still being packed in the bags and luggages that we brought up with us when we boarded the ship. They are able to store a large volume of items thanks to Foldable Space Technology and are definitely a lifesaver. I'm so glad that Mary made such an invention possible and I made sure she knew about it.
Living on the ship for the past few days had made me wonder if this is the kind of military life that Vance had been through until his retirement from ACE. Getting used to it definitely will take a while, especially when it comes to the need for privacy when you now have to share certain spaces and facilities that you usually took for granted as a civilian. The bathrooms in particular are where you can differentiate the civilised people from the barbarians. You wouldn't believe the kind of things you see there. Choked toilet bowls, the horrors you see left in the sinks, the stuff left behind in the shower cubicles… ugh. I haven't even gotten started on the more disgusting things I have seen thus far. Maybe that's why Zades hated the military. If so, I can totally empathise with him.
It is also not always guaranteed that there's an internet connection so sometimes you are left with nothing to do when surfing the internet to kill time is not an option. I'm not a stranger to that part of a journey out at sea since I have my fair share of experience during my travels to Indigo and to Unova. I'm already sort of an expert in dealing with boredom, especially when I have my ghosts and Fuzzy who always have funny ways to keep me entertained with their antics.
"The sea's so choppy," I cannot help but complain when I video called my parents after I managed to finally get myself a stable internet connection in this part of the world. I was lying on my stomach on my bed, the lower section of the double decker where Flanner and I are sharing. The ship has been rocking and rocking and rocking for the past two days and I'm never good with ships. I almost always get seasick.
I'm still recovering from a recent bout of seasickness.
"Nothing I can do to help with that, dear," my mother replied through the call. "Is everything there fine so far?"
"Not the best, but I will get used to it. The food really could be better though, but I'm not going to complain," I replied. Everyone here consumes their meals in the mess. The food is cooked by the ship's cooks and everyone eats the same thing, and the cookhouse is only open for two hours for every mealtime. Miss the timing and you will miss your meals. Most people had trouble waking up on time for breakfast since the timing for it was 5.30 am to 7.30am, which is too early for most, so most passengers ended up skipping breakfast. I could also tell that the cook tried to ensure some variety in the meals he cooked. I will give him points for effort, but the taste is undoubtedly lacking.
Again, I'm on a military ship, not a luxury cruise. I just have to accept things for what it is until I finally reach home.
There is good and bad about being seasick for the past few days. On one hand, it feels awful to be seasick. On the other hand, not only does being seasick somehow prevent Emil's ability from going through another uncontrollable outburst, it also allows me to fall asleep easier every time I need to sleep and get used to my new segmented sleep cycle. It's kind of weird how that worked out for me.
"Where's Flannery?" Mum asked. I poked my head out and looked upwards. She's not in her bed.
"Probably working at the office space. They call it the business centre over here, but all I see are pesky brats hogging the space," I replied to Mum. There's a lounge on this boat where people can bring their laptops over to find a proper desk to work or even game (I saw a few kids and some of the sailors doing that when I visited that place). The internet connection is considerably better there too in comparison to other sections of the ship, so some people prefer to go there to waste their time scrolling through their phones rather than doing so from the comfort of their bunks when we actually managed to get ourselves a stable internet connection. I personally don't like to go to the business centre because I tend to run into those annoying rowdy spoiled kids who couldn't take no for an answer. They are the same kids who like to hog some of the desks there to play their computer games.
"Your ship is a VIP ship. Everyone there are either super rich or influential figures in one way or another. Not too surprised that you will have some spoiled brats for neighbours."
"If I give them a good ol' ass whipping will you take my side?"
"Language."
"I'm fourteen. And ass could barely be counted as a bad word. Can I teach those kids a lesson? Can I? Can I?"
"I mean, if you have a really good reason to and you really are fed up with them, I won't stop you," Mum shrugged. Good, I now have the green light from the empress in our family.
Lunchtime came soon enough so I ended the call and headed over to the mess with Sebastian. Flannery and Norman were still nowhere to be found. I'm still feeling a little wobbly on my feet from the seasickness and I honestly don't have much of an appetite, but I know that it's more important to try and get some food in my stomach so that I won't be hungry until dinner comes.
"I'm not sure if it's just my seasickness or the food is just bland," I sighed after I took the first bite from my meal. Today's lunch is rice with one serving of meat, vegetables, and egg with seaweed soup. At least the meat's chewable this time although it's still fish again. Pretty sure a lot of the civilians had complained about the hard rock meat dish we had for our very first meal on board this ship. The sailors here simply ate as usual without complaints, probably already accustomed to the type of meals served here.
"It definitely could be better, but it's edible." Sebastian agreed. We continued with our meals in silence and I fed Fuzzy some of the food from my plate that I don't feel like eating. The little glutton ate it all up.
After my past two experiences with long distance sea journeys I had learnt that I really do not need most of my team to suffer the boredom together with me, so I sent most of them back home in advance using the PC Transfer System, only keeping a few with me. Namely, Chill and Bigblue in the very worst case scenario that the ship sank and I need a ride, Rena and Fuzzy for company, Lily because she really doesn't need much attention and resource in terms of upkeep, and also my ghosts and Jarvis. I had sent everyone else back home so that I would not need to fret about trying to find creative ways to keep them fed on a ship where space and food is limited. There are too many passengers on this ship unlike the two other times where I had luxurious facilities with only a few other passengers to share the space with, so such an arrangement was necessary for me.
Sebastian only brought his medicham and claydol along with him on this ship. The former is easily content if we simply give it a small space to itself to meditate in our bunk for a few hours a day and some time on the deck to exercise and practise some of its martial art moves, the latter just hovers on the deck aimlessly in its spare time and has no need to eat. It's still a mystery what the claydol species sustains itself on, or if it even needs sustenance at all.
The sudden piercing crash of a metal tray falling on the ground caught our attention.
"No! I don't want to eat this yucky food! Change it! Change it! Who eats this stupid thing anyway?! I have enough already!"
I rolled my eyes and continued to eat my food in silence. It's one of those brats again. I also just learnt that the gaggle of spoiled brats who Rena disliked all happened to be from the same group. A very big family had decided to go on a long holiday to Unova and they happened to be there when the Plasmas struck. They are also the biggest civilian group on this ship, easily about a fifth of our total civilian population here.
Unfortunately, we are also stuck with them on our trip back home.
"Who does the kid belong to anyway?" I asked Sebastian, who took a brief look at the brat in question. He didn't disappoint, he somehow managed to figure out at a glance where I can't.
"He should be from the Savic family."
"The family based in Lilycove?"
"Yes, that one. That family is a little… complicated. They are fragmented into different factions and have quite a lot of infighting ongoing behind the scenes."
I hummed in acknowledgement and continued with my meal. The Savic family is a family based in Lilycove and they are a family known for their business venture into freight transport industry and had been an irreplaceable presence in Lilycove for close to two centuries. They have an iron grip on the industry in that part of Hoenn, especially at their own turf in Lilycove and might as well be the ones calling the shots at the Lilycove port despite the port being a government-owned facility. That's the kind of influence they have at Lilycove and as you might have imagined, they have accumulated a lot of wealth in the two centuries that they took root there.
The boy began to throw a tantrum. I had learnt from my few days here that when a kid starts to throw a tantrum other kids will start to follow much like a spillover effect. The entire place turned into a ruckus soon enough and the crew had to step in.
You'd thought that the kids' parents would discipline their kids for making a public spectacle, or at least be embarrassed about their kids' behaviour and apologise to everyone about the disturbance. No, that did not happen. The kid's father began to haughtily demand the cooks to cook up some fancy dish that obviously is beyond their capabilities to prepare and when the crew very nicely tried to explain that this is not possible (we are on a military ship to escape a war torn region for crying out loud, we are not here on a holiday), he began to make a scene too. Now I know where the boy gets his disposition for tantrums from.
"If this is how they acted in Unova, they are an embarrassment to us Hoennians," I muttered under my breath and even Sebastian chuckled a little at my words. I could tell that even the sailors are a little fed up at the Savics' unreasonable demands and to be frank, most of us felt the same way too. We are all forced to share the same space here and will be doing so for the coming weeks, and we had put up with the antics of the Savics since day one. Our patience with them is running thin.
"What's going on here?"
The familiar voice caught my attention. The vice-captain made his timely appearance and I sat back to observe how he would handle the situation. To my surprise, it seems that the Savics knew him on a personal level.
"Zades! Just in time. Do something about the food here! See this?" The man pointed at the spilled food on the floor. "It's not even fit to be called food! There's-"
"This is not your yacht," Zades coolly cut the man off and his arms crossed over his chest. The noise level is getting higher and higher thanks to the din created by the tantrums thrown by the children and the arguing adults from the Savic family calling for their demands to be met. "I know the food here isn't the best, I acknowledge that, my cooks are trying their best to improve. But the food we have here was originally only enough for my crew until we received an urgent high-priority mission to u-turn, and sail at top speed to retrieve and rescue our people stranded at Unova who were at risk of being turned into snacks for a legendary dragon. We didn't have time to restock our supplies and there were no supplies to restock at Unova due to its current chaotic state. We are already facing a food shortage problem as it is, my men are voluntarily taking out portions from their shares to fill your shares so that you don't go hungry. We don't have enough for you to keep wasting it like that."
Zades looked at the spilled mess on the floor before looking back at the Savics to accentuate his point. A tense silence fell over the mess. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was stunned by the news Zades dropped on us. I looked back at the unfinished meal on my plate and a sudden guilt rose in my chest. I hadn't known about the unspoken sacrifices the sailors had silently made for us and from the looks of it, none of the civilians currently having their meals here do.
In front of the sacrifices that the crew had made for us, all of our complaints and grievances suddenly seemed so small in comparison.
"If you don't want to eat it, then leave it. Save your food for my men and their pokemon who went to bed hungry because they didn't have enough to eat before bed. We are trying our best to work around both the food supply and food quality problem. Yes, I know you guys are sick of eating fish and seaweed at this point, but that is the only possible source of meat and protein we can get here until we reach our next pit stop to refuel and resupply. You want to know where we get your fish and seaweed from? We had to send our pokemon down to the sea to hunt it for us. Don't like the taste of the fish? Either suck it up or give it to our pokemon who worked hard to put it on your plate."
Nobody said anything for a few seconds and a deafening silence fell across the mess. The man from the Savic family who was arguing with Zades had a reddening face from what I perceived to be anger for being humiliated publicly like that. I thought he would finally let things be in light of the situation that we are now facing and being let known of.
I wasn't expecting him to outright challenge my lowest expectations of how self-entitled a person can be. He's acting like the kind of asshole who you might come across when reading a badly written novel. I honestly never expected that it was possible to meet such a self-entitled human being acting in real life.
"I don't care. That's your problem," he arrogantly hammered his fist at Zades' chest to drive his point across and I could tell that Zades' temper was silently reaching his boiling point with the way he narrowed his eyes and how his biceps tensed. He still didn't retaliate despite that and I think I understood why. Vance was from the military too so I do know about certain things that other people might not. There's an unspoken rule in the Hoenn military that if you are a soldier and you lay a hand on a civilian, you are in the wrong, because at the end of the day you are a soldier whose duty is to lay your lives to protect your countrymen. It's a little unfair to our soldiers, but at the same time I could vaguely understand the rationale behind why there's such an unreasonable rule in the military even if I don't fully approve of it.
At this point I'm just incensed by the Savics' unbelievably self-entitled behaviour. Zades and his men are unable to do anything to the Savics because they are soldiers and are bound by their code of conduct, but there's no rule stating that personnel outside of the military couldn't teach them a lesson.
'Pull that trash away.'
I heard the hollow cackles answering me at the back of our mind and tendrils of shadow quickly bloomed below the man's feet and tossed him away from Zades. There were a few fearful screams from the sudden unknown intervention and I slowly stood up from my seat in the midst of it and calmly walked towards the site of the argument with my arms crossed across my chest. Sebastian released a sigh, but stood up to follow after me nevertheless. I saw Zades having an amused smirk on his face when he glanced my way but that disappeared as soon as it came when we both directed our attention to the man yelling out loud for the person to do that to him to watch it.
I mentally applauded my ghosts' work when I realised that they had thrown him into the pile of food that his kid had spilled on the floor earlier. They certainly knew the best ways to escalate an argument.
"Who did that?! Get out here!"
"I did it," I admitted loud and clear for everyone to hear. "I had enough of you and your family being a public nuisance. What do you think this place is, your private yacht? Do I have to get you a bottle of champagne to complete your classy meal?"
"You bitch-" the man seethed, his hands raised to undoubtedly do something physical as he stomped towards me but Wacky emerged with a blood curdling scream at that instance, eyes eerily red and maws opened with a hiss. That kept every single one of those annoying Savics in line immediately.
"What? That all you got? Didn't you want to slap me? I'm right here, do it," I taunted, unafraid of utterly offending the Savic family because I can afford to. The Savics should be the ones afraid of offending me, even if they are currently unaware of my identity.
"You'll regret this," the man promised with a shaking finger pointing my way. I wordlessly raised my eyebrows in return. "Don't you know who we are, huh? The entire Hoenn freight transport industry is under our control! We could easily bankrupt you-"
"Just the freight transport industry? Try something better, why don't you?" I flippantly dismissed him and I heard Zades stifling a laugh because he knew which family I came from. "Look, if Zades' words from earlier didn't strike the reality of our situation here into your self-entitled brain, then either just accept and eat what we have in gratitude or just leave and return to your bunk. Don't go around spoiling everyone's appetite just because you don't have one. Am I clear?"
The man opened his mouth, probably to make a nasty reply, but Wacky stuck out his disturbingly long tongue and twisted it in complex patterns in the air that reminded the man that I have a very fearsome ghost on my side. He swallowed his words back to his gut.
Come to think about it…
"Weren't you guys making a fuss to see my pokemon the other day? Here, this is my pokemon, want to make friends with it?" I directed my questions to the insufferably spoiled brats and they all shook their heads, too scared stiff to even make a sound. There, finally some peace and quiet.
"Come back, Wacky." I motioned for Wacky to return to my side and he happily did so with a skip and a jump, making happy cackling noises while doing so. I turned around to walk back to my seat and Wacky dove back to my shadow because he got bored from the lack of any exciting things here.
I heard the sound of running footsteps behind me which was quickly followed by another loud crash. I turned around, spotting Zades pinning a yelling and struggling man on the floor who was also the one making all the ruckus earlier. What had he done this time?
"He tried to hit you from behind the moment Wacky disappeared. Very unwise," Sebastian explained, lowering his hands and relaxing his posture. No doubt that he would have taken action if Zades didn't get to that Savic man first. Did he seriously think that he could hit me even if Wacky is not visibly present? Did he not see Fuzzy and Rena nearby? Not very smart, is he?
I could also see that there's a large bruise quickly forming on the man's face. It clued me in that a very painful punch was involved when Zades brought him down.
"HOW DARE YOU! A SOLDIER SHOULDN'T HIT A CIVILIAN! I WILL BRING THIS UP TO YOUR SUPERIORS, YOU HEAR ME?! WHERE'S THE CAPTAIN OF THE SHIP?! I DEMAND TO SEE THE CAPTAIN!"
Gosh, some people really are just so self-entitled.
"That fine lady there is a citizen of Hoenn that we soldiers had sworn to protect as per our duty when we enlisted. You raised your hand at her when her back was turned with the intention to do her harm and as a soldier, I'm simply doing my duty to protect a fellow Hoenn civilian. Thus, I have every right to do what I can to protect her, because I am a soldier," Zades cooly replied in a somewhat singsong and insufferable tone, clearly very happy for being able to finally have an excuse to punch this public nuisance in the face. Many other civilians who were in the mess and witnessed the entire debacle cheered and applauded, voicing their support for Zades' actions.
"Unfortunately, you will not be able to see our captain. He's down with a contagious disease just a day before we received orders from the higher-ups to head to Unova and we did not have a chance to unload him off the ship, so he's still in self-isolation in his quarters. As such, the vice-captain, namely yours truly, calls all the shots in this ship now. You have any grievances, you take it up to me. Un-der-stand?" He punctuated his last word by knocking on the top of the man's head once for every syllabus he spoke. Another round of applause sounded out from the civilians and many others laughed at his expense. I guess everyone is just fed up with the Savics at this point and are just glad to see him get subdued.
"Feel free to call the higher-ups to sack me, I don't care anyway since I'm resigning very soon. I just want to make certain things clear. I am currently the acting commander of this ship and so I call all the shots in here now. You are on my ship. My ship, my rules. Flout the rules, and we are going to have problems. When we have problems, you are going to have a problem. And when you have a problem, the confinement cell is where we will solve that problem because obstructing a public servant in performing his rightful duty is a very serious criminal offence. My current duty is to fret about how I should send everyone here back home safely and I cannot afford to have distractions. Have we reached a consensus?"
The man stared hatefully at Zades but all he received was a false and polite smile from the vice-captain that promised retribution if he wore on his patience. I honestly am kind of in awe at how Zades twisted all the rules against the Savics the moment he was provided the excuse to do so, namely the opportunity that presented itself when that insufferable Savic tried to harm me. Then there's also his words about obstructing a public servant in performing his rightful duty, I honestly can't believe how he found such a convenient excuse to throw all the Savics into the confinement cell whenever he likes.
Nice going.
"And oh, by the way…" Zavic leaned down to whisper into the Savic man's ear and I saw how his eyes went wide in disbelief when his gaze turned to me. I gave him a very cordial smile in return, already guessing that Zades must have told him who I really am. The Savic family couldn't afford to offend the Vera family, but the Vera family certainly could afford to if we wish. Every passenger on this ship is a VIP, but there are some who are more VIP than the VIPs.
And if abusing my VVIP status is going to allow everyone to have a more enjoyable trip going forward, why not?
Character and pokemon list:
Velda Vera, Age: 14, Female, Pokemon Trainer
Pokemon on hand:
1) Rapidash (Flamel), male
2) Swampert (Bigblue), male
3) Banette (Dolly), female
4) Flygon (Snap), male
5) Absol (Kelsa), female
6) Charizard (Toothless), male
7) Cradily (Lily), female
8) Espeon (Rena), female
9) Pachirisu (Fuzzy), male
10) Tyranitar (Kratos), male
11) Clefairy (Joy), female
12) Nidoqueen (Ness), female
13) Pangoro (Hulk), male
14) Porygon-Z (Jarvis), genderless
15) Scizor (Archer), male
16) Lapras (Chill), female
17) Gengar (Wacky), male