2024-01-21: Blasted Off
- Log: 2024-01-21 Blasted Off
- Cast: Jessie and James, Lan Lilac
- Where: A forest somewhere on Energy Nede
- Date: January 21, 2024
- Summary: After their Pokemon theft was spoiled at the Dunsparce Spa, Team Rocket still has to deal with one more terrifying Visitor from beyond the stars.
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Looks like Team Rocket's blasting off again--!!"
And Lan gets latched onto with the rest of the crowd, as they sail merrily over the horizon. But what happens to Team Rocket, when they blast off?
Well, they end up dangling off the edge of a cliff...
... or landing in a lake...
... or right in the centre of a paddock of Tauros...
... or, one time, they landed right on Anne's lab, which was apparently an accident but Jessie is pretty sure the Professor engineered that somehow...
... but today, they've gone with an old, solid stand-by:
Getting tangled in some forest trees.
"Koff," Koffing koffs, as James fumbles for his Pokeball and retrieves him -- just in time for their basket to tip over --
"Waaaaagh!"
-- and deposit everyone in a heap on the forest floor.
"Mrowrth," Meowth breathes a sigh of relief, because he landed on top.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan had seen hot air balloons before, okay. They're not a super common means of transport or sightseeing on Filgaia, but they exist! She knows what to expect: if you puncture the balloon, the whole thing floats (falls) to the ground.
Symbology and Nedean technology, however, were not something she'd taken into consideration.
"...Wait, you're whaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA--!?"
And she sailed off towards the horizon (far corners of the energy dome) with Team Rocket and their balloon. Thankfully, finally, they've crashlanded in a tree. Lan can finally stop whiteknuckling the edge of the basket! ...Juuuust in time for gravity to provide one final, parting embarassment. Is it mad at her for all the years she's spent thwarting its grasp with her butterfly ribbon and magic?!
More importantly, whose adorable beans are these on her face??
At the next-to-top of the heap, Lan lifts Meowth off of her head and sits up at the same time. "Oof. Thank goodness you're okay!" Just because he's some kind of cat Pokemon trained to do evil doesn't mean Lan wants to see him get injured! "Where are the other guys?"
Protip: look down. Lan is still in her wet bathing suit, and thus Jessie probably has an embarrassing buttprint on her back or something.
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Gah!" Jessie sure does. It's super embarrassing. "Get off of me, you twerp!"
"Get off of her?!" James wails, from the bottom of the pile. "Get off of me!"
"Mrowr?" Meowth looks down at the Pile of Trainers, and flicks an ear. There are sounds of discontent -- "your FOOT is in my EAR get OFF" -- as everyone figures out how to disentangle themselves, but after a brief dustcloud --
-- Jessie and James stand tall, pointing down at Lan in unison!
"I can't believe we have a stowaway!" "An intruder!" "Well, you'd better prepare for trouble!" "And make it double!" "Go, Ekans!" "Go, Koffing!"
They toss their Pokeballs in unison... only for Ekans and Koffing to appear in their very own pile, very clearly pooped. "Koffiii," Koffing koffs, all out of floating juice. "Kkaaanssss," Ekans hisses, a droopy noodle.
"Eeehhh..." Jessie says, looking at their fainted Pokemon.
"Go, Meowth!" James takes the initiative, pointing to Lan anew.
... except, of course, Meowth is busy grooming his face. "Mrrraaa," he says, dismissively, groom groom groom.
"Uh, well..." James starts, his hand lowering, before he grips it into a fist. "We're adults, so we'll just beat you up! Get her, Jessie!"
"Why me!" Jessie exclaims, turning to him.
"You're the scary one!" James insists.
But little do they know--!!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
There is rumbling underneath her. ...More like whining, really. A lot of complaining! Meowth jumps out of her hands as Lan tumbles off of them, rolling easily into a crouch to watch as Jessie and James pull themselves together and to their feet. "Twerp?" she echoes, frowning faintly. Isn't that for little shrimpy people? Or kids? Or basically for anybody smaller than you? (Or Loren. Depending on his most recent behaviors, Loren has Universal Twerpitude.)
Their Pokemon are still exhausted from the battle at the hot springs, and the rough ride probably didn't do them any favors, either. It's good that these two - Team Rocket? What a weird name - are willing to take over for them while they rest, though!
Lan nods once they start debating about who's going to beat her up, because now she knows how to deal with the situation! It's apparently just Not A Thing for people to fight Pokemon, but Lan can totally fight these two. :3
She stands up. And up. And up-- well maybe not that much up. She's only two inches taller than James! But she's built like somebody who walks everywhere, and carries heavy things, and dances all the time. And the sporty cut of the Pokegram-worthy bikini shows just about every inch of it.
Also, she's brought herself up onto one leg, the other ready to snap forward and smash a heel into someone's beautiful face should they attempt to strike. And she's smiling.
"Okay! Do you need to go get a weapon or anything? Should I wait?" Somehow, she manages to bounce on the heel of that single foot.
what the hell are Visitors, seriously
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Wh--what's with her?!" James yelps, as he springs behind Jessie, blatantly using her as a human shield. "Is she some kind of Battle Girl?!"
"Worse!" Jessie exclaims, throwing an arm up as if it could defend her. "That's a Visitor!"
"AYEEEEIGH!"
They turn tail to run, only to end up ramming straight into a tree. Lan didn't even need to snap her heel into their beautiful faces; the branch does it for her.
"Looks like..." "... Team Rocket's..." they manage to mumble, before they sliiiiide down the bark, collapsing in a heap.
"Mrrraarrrrr," Meowth buries his face in a paw.
"Ffing..." Koffing grumbles, and Ekans swats him with her tail, sending him rolling in a half-circle on the ground. "Ekaa."
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
They react differently than Lan had expected!
"Huh. Are... are you guys okay...?" she asks, frozen in place, still standing on one leg. "What's a Battle Girl? It sounds cool!" Is there more than one? Can Lan be a Battle Girl too??
Alas, answers may have to wait. 'Team Rocket' seems like they're going to need a minute. "Are they gonna be okay?" she asks the Pokemon, finally setting both feet on the ground. "Maybe they need a doctor. Oh no, what if they're hurt from the crash?" She did land on them...
If she had her things, she could try to give them first aid. She's not sure her one diagnostic spell will work on Nedeans without some serious tweaking and study - she already knows that it works a little differently on Filgaians and Lunarians, due to how energy meridians are subtly different between populations. (Lan attributes this to one set of humans being 'closer to space'. Lan is incredibly incorrect.) Ethius Hesiod, known spaceman, has not yet responded to her requests to look at his energy pathways. His letter probably just got lost in the mail!
"Do any of you know where the nearest doctor is? Or a Pokemon Center?" she asks Ekans, Koffing, and Meowth. "I don't know how to navigate here yet. Um, but I'm sure they're fine!" It wouldn't do to upset their partner Pokemon!
Lan crouches next to Jessie and James, barefoot in the grass. "Let's see, pulse..." She has nothing to check it against but her own, but lifts their hands to check on the insides of their wrists the way Loren taught her. "...Yep, they've got pulses. They're breathing. Uh, pupil reaction?" She reeeeaches out to lift Jessie's eyelid...!
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Myaa," Meowth shrugs, as he watches Lan wander over to them. (She will find that James has a characteristically limp wrist, but there IS a pulse. Jessie's eye twitches; she's probably alive.) The cat Pokemon walks over to the two of them while Lan is fussing --
-- and lifts his leg back --
-- and PUNTS James right in the tushie.
"Yeowp!" He yelps, as he hops up, followed shortly by Jessie going "YEEP!", because Meowth just bit her hand.
"Mrarrrr-arrrr," Meowth puts his hands on his hips, gesturing to the Visitor. He folds his paws, and concludes: "Mreh."
"We can TOTALLY handle this!" James insists, as Jessie adds: "We ARE handling this!"
So they're having an argument with their cat, and they're losing.
"All right," Jessie sighs, at length, turning to Lan. "You've clearly caught us at a bad time, so why don't we just agree that we would normally beat you to a pulp and skip forward to..." She gestures, buying time with her open palm.
"Say, what comes after we beat someone?" James asks, as if he doesn't know.
"I was getting to that!!" Jessie barks, because she totally knew what to say.
Oh no. They need so much help. There's not an experienced enough professional in the WORLD.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Oh good, you're okay!" she sighs, super relieved! She could definitely carry one of them to town, but both at once would be pretty taxing even for Lan and her rockin' thighs. She stays crouched there while they work it out among themselves, but stands again when Jessie 'graciously' offers to let Lan claim defeat. Her first instinct - her pride as a Baskar shaman could be on the line! - is to insist on that battle. But... they did just beat themselves up with a tree. If she did fight them and beat them up to teach them a lesson, they seem very much like the kind of people who wouldn't actually learn anything. Worse, they might decide that she'd taken advantage of their vulnerability! Even worse than that, what if they would be right?!
Outwardly, Lan pauses for a couple of seconds while the horrifying possibilities unspool out into her mind. In the end of the daymare, Dream Lan is tossed unceremoniously out of Nedean society for taking advantage of the local theater club, and nobody will come to her defense because the trial (with a judge in a wig and everything!) was at the end of Victory Road and nobody could powerlevel their new Pokemon fast enough to get there in time.
It's weird inside Lan's head, okay.
Diplomatically, Lan just says, "Okay, we can try again when you're feeling one hundred percent." She'll crush them fair and square!
"Have... you guys never won a fight?" she asks, less diplomatically, eyes widening.
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
Meowth would fit right in in Lan's head. He daydreams all the time. Mostly about how happy the Boss is going to be with his victories, and how he's going to throw his Persian out onto the streets and lavish Meowth with all the fancy cat toys in the world.
Speaking of Meowth's victories --
Jessie looks at James.
James looks at Jessie.
Both of them, simultaneously, estimate in their minds whether that thing at the Alcremie Parlour counts.
It does not.
"Well..." Jessie starts.
"That is..." James goes on.
"You see..." Jessie gestures.
"In the end..." James gasps.
"WE'VE NEVER WON A FIGHT?!" The two of them exclaim, in horrified unison, as they gape at each other.
"It's not our fault!" Jessie insists, turning to Lan again. "Those twerps always get in our way!" "They say we're disturbing the peace," James bemoans, as Jessie clutches her hand to a fist and declares: "I'll disturb them!"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
They're disturbing, all right...
A teeny tiny itty bitty voice in the back of her head preens a little bit at at their admission of never winning a fight ever including this one, which was not actually a fight at all. She ignores it. (Lan was never taught that pride is a sin. Just that you could be rude if you had too much of it.)
"I mean," she tries again, tilting her blonde head to the side. "You kind of absolutely were, though. It was really peaceful at the spa until you showed up in a balloon and tried to kidnap Pokemon. If you want more, why don't you go catch your own? Are these guys not enough?" She doesn't really get it...!
But now she remembers why she climbed up into the balloon in the first place! "That's right, you tried to kidnap Runeberry! And Pyri! And a bunch of other Pokemon! That's so heartless... what would you feel like, if someone kidnapped your snake and your uh... your that, guy," she finishes lamely, motioning at poor Koffing. "I mean, he's a cloud, right? A poison cloud? What are you, anyway?" Lan asks, frowning a bit in confusion. "Sorry, we don't have Pokemon where I'm from..."
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Koffing!" Koffing finds the strength to declare his name, and manages to sound offended, even though he's a big poison cloud balloon guy.
"That's my Koffing," James explains, as if he hadn't just introduced himself, "and he's mine! We need powerful Pokemon for the Boss!"
"Yeah!" Jessie adds, clapping her fist into her palm. "Rare and powerful Pokemon, not the kind you can just find by walking through any old forest!"
"Meowth!" Meowth Meowths, a paw to his chest, which clearly translates to --
"No, not like you!" James deflates him, and the poor cat sinks in dismay. "Like that Runeberry! I've never seen a Pokemon like that before -- if we brought it to the Boss, he'd finally be happy with us! We'd get a BONUS!"
"Team Rocket has a vision for the future," Jessie explains, a hand on her hip. "Before the Boss came around, no one was willing to shake things up around here. All those people out there are just using their Pokemon to do what we've always done -- do the Gym Challenge, become Champions, blah, blah, blah." James helpfully makes the 'blah, blah, blah' gesture beside her so she doesn't have to change out of her haughty posture, and then adds: "If it wasn't for the Boss, people like us would have no place to fit in here." ("Mrarawr," Meowth interjects, at 'people like us', because surely he means losers like them.) "That's why we're going to bring the finest Pokemon right back to him!"
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
"Oh! Koffing. I'm sorry." She doesn't really get why you would name something that, but then again it sure did make people koff. Er, cough. "My name is Lan. It's nice to meet you!" ...It could be worse, anyway.
A vision for the future sounds nice and all, but... "Just 'shake things up'? I mean, I understand being bored, but do you even know what your Boss is going to do?" Lan hadn't known. It hadn't been important. She just had to cooperate with Gebler and support Loren and Leah on missions. Tabitha had made a few remarks about Lan being a pet, but Lan had thought it was a joke, or maybe just Tabitha being Tabitha (being weird). She presses the issue. "Really, I know how good it feels to belong somewhere, but what happens when your Boss has a bunch of really powerful Pokemon?"
"And what happens to the Pokemon once they're away from their people? What would've happened to Runeberry?!"
Lan loves Runeberry. It's like having a pet around that she isn't responsible for! And then she goes and feeds it and plays with it and does all kinds of responsible things for it, anyway. She draws herself up to her full height, hands clenched into fists. "Runeberry isn't even a Pokemon! It doesn't know how to fight or anything, okay?" She points at them, one after the other, and then glares at Meowth, Koffing, and Ekans for good measure to see that her point really does get across. "If you try and kidnap it again, even for your boss, I'll beat the crud out of you both with my bare hands! Okay?"
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
"Fin," Koffing does his best to say Lan's name.
"What happens?! What happens is we save the world, so hand over your Pokemon already!" Jessie insists, with a palm-curling gesture. "We don't have to know how he's going to pull off toppling the Ten Wise Men with Pokemon to know he's going to do it!" Say what you will about them: they really seem to believe in this Boss fella.
If it looks like blind loyalty, don't worry about that.
"Yeah!" James adds, fiercely. "And aside from that, getting all those rare Pokemon makes Team Rocket TOTALLY RICH!" "Wildly successful!" Jessie adds, before James finishes, in perfect sync: "And devastatingly handsome! So hand over--!" His face falls as Lan makes it very clear that she will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER hand over Runeberry, and he leaps behind Jessie again. ("Yeep!")
"Hmph," Jessie folds her arms, as if she's not also terrified of this upstart. She even turns her nose up. Rude. "If it's not a Pokemon, and it can't fight, it's useless to our operations anyway. Keep the blasted little thing!"
Meowth, Koffing, and Ekans, wisely, elect not to start a fight with the terrifying Battle Girl Visitor.
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
Lan is not immune to the cuteness of Pokemon trying to say people words!! If she had any treats to give him for trying, Koffing would so get one!
She squints at both Jessie and James, like she's just not sure she can believe they're really like this. (This is karma. Maybe even divine justice. Loren's vanished sanity is being avenged right this second.) "How rich would you need to be, to give up your Pokemon? If your boss gave you a million gella, or- or whatever money you use, would you say goodbye to Koffing and Meowth and Ekans? Never see them again?"
This is important. It's important to Lan! They don't understand, and maybe they aren't going to. Maybe they can't.
But at least they understand that she'll fight for Runeberry, and any other Pokemon. "I guess it's just like I told him," she sighs, and turns away to stretch her arms up over her head. "You can't let your friends do bad things." Even if they aren't her friends, they don't seem... bad. "If you want to stop the Ten Wise Men like we do, then why not work with us? Drifters-- well, you call us Visitors, right? But we call ourselves Drifters. ...It doesn't matter!" It's just a name!
Lan also wants to save the world. A different world. But she'll save this one too!
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
Koffing is a good boy who deserves treats. It's not his fault he's owned by a thug. (A devastatingly handsome thug, but still a thug.)
Jessie and James look at each other. "A million KOL..." Which answers one question, at least. "We'd be independently wealthy..." They're clearly thinking about it.
But Jessie and James look back at Lan, and point out: "The Boss doesn't need Pokemon like ours!" "So we'd just take the money and keep our Pokemon!!" HA! Loophole!
"No thanks," Jessie says, crossing her arms together. "You've already strong-armed us out of stealing one Pokemon. Or -- uh -- whatever you call that Runeberry. If we travel with you, where does it end?" James adds, whining: "Soon you'll even demand we don't dine and dash at the cafe!" Being fair, the cafes in the Energy Nede would be entirely willing to give them food for free if they were hungry.
They'd just rather steal it. Their pride as Team Rocket is on the line!
<Pose Tracker> Lan Lilac has posed.
They're totally missing the point!!
And even worse, they're considering selling their Pokemon! Lan knows that people trade which is already super strange to her. But... just sell?
It feels gross.
"Fffffffffffffffiiiiiiiiiiiiine," Lan groans, wiping her face with both hands. Ugh. She'll just have to keep trying. Or do like she does with Loren, and just interfere so that they can't steal any Pokemon! ...To be fair, everybody was doing a pretty good job of defending themselves. Lan can probably take it a lot easier with these two than she can with Solaris.
She considers it. Well, it could be like a little vacation? At least until she finds everybody again?
It occurs to Lan, standing there in the middle of the woods, that she's still wearing just her swimsuit. It's not that she's wearing much less than usual (she isn't really), but more that she's still wet, and her hair is wet, and all her stuff is back at the springs! "...You don't know how to get back to a town, do you?" she asks, because a girl could really go for a towel right now.
<Pose Tracker> Jessie and James has posed.
Listen, Team Rocket are motivated by wealth and success. You can't just put a plate of snacks in front of a starving man and expect him NOT to consider eating it. They should get points for thinking through the scenario long enough to find that loophole!
Unwitting as to the deadly frienemy they've made today, Jessie scrutinises Lan, a hand to her chin. "Oh, I see the problem. But you're so not my size. I'm far more ladylike."
James adds, "But she's not that much bigger than me..."
"The pants would definitely be too short on her," Jessie points out, gesturing to those man-killing thighs.
"No problem!" James declares, flashing a V-for-victory. "Since we were nice enough to let her go, let's show her our Team Rocket hospitality!"
And that's how Lan ends up showing up at the nearest town -- still Vermillion, they didn't fly that far off-course -- in one of James's signature disguises.
... her reporter's skirt is a little scandalously short, and it's a bit tight on her, but the seamwork is excellent.