soggypastry | 033 [Video/Action for Goldenrod + Anon Text]

[Private Text to: Riku and Xion]
Team Rocket's list of targets changed. You're both on it now, so stay sharp and watch your backs. I don't know when they'll move on any of us.
[/private texts]

[It's been almost three months since he left, with only a letter to say goodbye. To say that Lightning hadn't been thinking about him as the day that would have been thier first anniversary drew nearer would be a lie, and she's taken it with remarkable grace when all things are concerned.

Or maybe she's just used to getting left behind. Who knows. All she knows is there's a house on the beach with too many memories and dreams, and she can barely look at Lucky or Strike without expecting him to be right at her side. She has to put that part of her past to rest if she's going to be able to lead the Corps in the best way she can, and so she's come to the seaside once more. Something a young boy once taught her matters more than she ever thought it would now.

Those passing close to the Radio tower will find her crouched at the railing, a lit sparkler in one hand and a bottle with a letter in the other as her Lucario stands guard nearby, gear in paw. Today would have been special, if he were here. But he isn't and it's just one more anniversary of loss. One more thing that needs to be shaken off.]

Turn it off, Sen.

[The Lucario in question yelps, but it's only in surprise, not fear. Lightning's voice is steady and quiet, and she rises to her feet as the sparkler burns out and leaves ash in the wind. She moves to the railing now, but Sen manages to end the feed just as the bottle that was in her hand drops out of sight and into the ocean.

A few minutes later, however, something else hits the network. The fact that it's an anonymous text may make people wary, but there's nothing untoward about this one. No, this one is the exact opposites of the others that have gone out.]

[Anon Text]
If someone gave you a chance to help protect this world and everyone who lives here from the people who want to harm it, would you do it? Or would you stand by and watch it burn like the Lighthouse?

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

So sometimes it's "I" and sometimes it's "we". Why don't you quit playing cute and just say what you're actually after with all this? It'd save the both of us a lot of time and maybe we'd actually get something accomplished here for a change.

What we're after, as a group that's already formed to take on Team Rocket, is troops. This is a recruitment effort. I'm just the spokesperson who deals with the people involved.

I have a group at home already. Another one will slow me down.

[Unfortunately for Lightning, regardless of the format this conversation would happen in he would be just as stupidly stubborn. That and he's a teenage boy who thinks he knows everything.]

Troops, huh? Then count me out, Uncle Sam.

That's fine. We need people willing to fight back, anyway. People who just run their mouths are useless in this mess.

But it doesn't eliminate them. It never will. Eventually, your luck's going to run out and you're going to get burned. It's only a matter of when and how now.

[Teenagers who think they know everything...hah. She knows the the type.]

Keep thinking like that and the only one who'll be slow is you. You'd be a liability to anyone you work with because they have to work around you instead of with you, and you'll never reach your full potential. See if you can accomplish your mission when you're crippling your chances already.

Yes. Still, as they say, time heals all wounds. Of course, the rate of healing can differ. I can think of an event I put behind me two years before I showed up here, while there's an event nearly two years before that that still bothers me.

[Pause.]

...So I'm guessing this is something either recent or had a profound impact.

[That earns a half-amused sound from Lightning, and she shakes her head. Sen whines a bit, nuzzling into her side in response.]

Try both. First in May and again ten days ago. [sigh.] This place has ways of screwing you over just when you think things are okay again.

That's also an option. So long as they know they'd have to face the consequences of those actions like everyone else.

Some people prefer to work alone even when they have friends. I'm guessing you're not one of them?

[There's a delay in the reply to that. She can indeed take that as Page's answer, but she needed a moment to switch to a different kind of filter.

Hi, Page. Pinkhaired lady on your screen now. Remember her?]

You'd be willing to work in a squad, then? No one in this group works alone. We don't take chances like that.

My mission is something only I can do. I have to do it alone.

[He might be aware that he's crossing over from stubborn into complete denial, but he's both unsure of if he wants to keep responding and too proud to stop at this point.]

Whoever gave you that idea is either stupid or setting you up to fail. Did you stop to consider that? There's a reason the military assigns people to squads, and it's not to watch fireworks.

[Complete denial and stubborn idiocy. Yeah. He's pushed a couple of her buttons, too. Pride is all well and good, but this? This is something else.]

[[Page blinks in surprise as the familiar face pops onto her screen, and not just because she wasn't expecting the medium change.]]

I didn't expect to see you again so soon. At least, not in this context.

[[Really, she's actually kind of impressed. Consider it an achievement.]]

Just what it is this group of yours is fighting against? I'm getting the impression that this place isn't as rosy as I first thought, if that attack on that building was anything to go by.

Likewise.

[She'll take what she can get, though! No complaints here, even if she has to feel out what kind of person Page really is.]

We're fighting against the people who attacked the lighthouse. [she takes a deep breath now, needing to calm her nerves. Recruitment has never been a strong suit.] They're called Team Rocket. They've done things like steal others Pokemon and attack trainers directly, along with destroying other buildings and nearly taking out two towns. We don't know what they're after, but standing by and letting them have their way isn't an option.

This isn't a military mission and it isn't something I want anyone else involved in. I'm the only one who can kill him.

[Actually, he doesn't want to add that last line and he'd rather be more anonymous about it where possible. But when he tries to go and delete the words, he accidentally sends it instead.

He's starting to miss the just plain voice communicators for missions...]

[Well then. That...doesn't clear anything up. If anything, it just makes her remember something she saw happen so long ago.]

So, what? You'll risk your own death because you won't let yourself ask someone for help? Now I can't tell if you're being stupid or just suicidal. What good is killing that person going to do? It's not going to make anything better.

[There's another long gap between texts, mostly because it feels like he's given away information that he wasn't prepared to. But, again, his pride wins out and he simply can't let the message sit.]

The only people who could have helped died five years ago.

I'd probably help out, unless it was really super-dangerous or something.

Not going to happen. But hypothetically speaking, if it were to happen, I'd make sure that I wasn't the only one burned. If I were you, I'd remember that.

[She's just shaking her head at all this. She hasn't heard this much idiocy in a long time.]

And that's stopping you from asking others to help? That doesn't make sense.

[Clearly this is her first time meeting Sasuke.]

I'm not asking you to understand.

Then you might not want to get involved. This isn't going to be peaceful in any sense of the word.

It's not like there's much I'm scared of. I can fight, no problem. But if it's my life or the world... That's a tough choice, you know?

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