[PRP] Similar Experiences

[Suudonym]

The damage done by the trainer from the conference wasn't more than Luke could tolerate, but it did severely limit his day to day activities. Though temporarily impeded from using a sword or firearm properly, he had plenty of time to dedicate to training his pokemon, an activity that presented the benefit of a distraction from the thoughts that had come to the surface in his conversation with Rosie. For the time being, he sat in the neatly-kept grass of Camphoreon's park - fortunately his team was understanding of his weariness and allowed him the respite - and watched the Aggron that charged after the nimble Jolteon that was its current training partner, the former honing his Rock Polish and the latter improving her evasiveness. Occasionally he called out an observation of their movements, a light critique that often received an indignant snort in response from the larger of the pokemon.  

[Gwennythe]

An Aggron was big enough to pull Hen's attention in that direction as she made her way through the park, likely looking either for wild pokémon, or perhaps looking for a place to train Gummy and Winglet.

The girl trotted over, Totodile held in her arms, as she spotted the large pokémon, and then was nearly running, when she stopped, having seen it battling the Jolteon.
"Oh man! So awesome!" She proclaimed, skidding to a stop, and staring at the pair of battlers.  

[Suudonym]

Rem, suddenly aware of an audience apart from her trainer, came to a sudden stop; her Aggron companion didn't have such responsive breaks, however, and he barreled past gracelessly, staggering to an eventual halt. Luke, recognizing the trainer and pokemon pair that had approached the area, pushed to his feet and moved towards the pokemon, leaning to pat the Jolteon's head briefly, "That's not a bad tactic, huh?" He turned his attention to his human company, his expression quiet but amicable, glad to see that she apparently hadn't been targeted after the conference for defending the apparent 'Rocket.' As he recalled, he'd never really spoken to her properly. "Hey," he raised a hand in greeting, then gestured to the pokemon pair, "sorry, I hope they're not taking up too much room…" The immediate assumption from the pokemon in her arms was that she too was hoping to spend some time training.  

[Gwennythe]

"Aw..." The girl looked just slightly disappointed for a few seconds as she realised her appearance had halted the training battle.
She brightened up again, though, as she recognised the trainer, but quickly shook her head.

"Totally not! There's tons of room and we only just go here and came over cuz we saw them battling! It was awesome! Hey!" She beamed, while Gummy dangled, passively, staring at nothing, in her arms.  

[Suudonym]

Rem, who had taken a place standing still as a statue at Luke's side, moved forward and began tracing a wide circle around the unfamiliar human, evaluating her and her pokemon and ignoring grunts from Tartarus that they had been in the middle of something and had yet to finish.

"Well, that's good then," Luke replied, inheriting a portion of her enthusiasm in his tone and features. He hesitated momentarily, unsure if the topic in mind was prudent to bring up, but eventually he decided to chance it. "Thanks for defending me the other day, at the conference," he said. "You got out of there all right?" As he recalled, she and Nicolette had escaped before things escalated, but he was unaware of anything that had happened in the main hall.  

[Gwennythe]

Gummy just kind of dangled there. He /seemed/ to be simply staring at Luke, but it was equally likely that he wasn't staring at anyone or anything in particular.

"Yeah! They're awesome to watch! Sorry we kinda interrupted your battle..." The girl blinked, then grinned "No problem! It was totally stupid! We /know/ /you're/ not a stupid Rocket! Those guys were just being stupid and mean..." The grin had gradually changed until it was a frown right at the end of her statement.
She kicked the ground a little, then huffed, but nodded.
"Yeah... Sorry we couldn't stick around and help out more... Gummy and Winglet could totally have taken them all on and really helped!" She insisted, before nodding again. "But, yeah, we got out okay; this guy called Inigo came and stood with us but then he kinda disappeared at the police check out... I think maybe he got lost cuz his Vaporeon was still wanderin' around and waited with us!"  

[Suudonym]

"Don't worry about it. Seems like Rem was ready for a break - she'll get her focus back eventually," he dismissed, noting how the Jolteon's ears flicked in response to her name. Tartarus was waiting patiently, after all; she'd stop ignoring him sooner or later.

"Stupid and mean and stubborn," he amended with a nod. Though he permitted himself to excuse their actions on grounds of good intentions, it didn't change the fact that they had acted precisely like the Rockets they so claimed to hate. "It's all right; things got kind of crazy after you and Nicolette left. I'm glad you both made it out safely." Thankfully, the sincerity in his tone outweighed the bitterness. The name she mentioned was familiar, and he frowned thoughtfully as he tried to place it. "He was the guy that went in with us, right? And sat behind us?" A friend of Rosie's, it had seemed, but no one he knew himself.  

[Gwennythe]

Henrietta bent to set Gummy on the ground- there were other pokémon out that he could play with!
Gummy's response was to toddle about three steps forward and then just stop and continue to stare straight ahead.

"Uh. I think so!" She hadn't really been paying much attention to the people who had been sitting behind- there had been cool League stuff to see! Until the incident anyway...
"Stupid Rockets... It totally wasn't fair that that happened!" She also rather hoped the guy, and his pokémon would find each other quickly enough; the fact that he just vanished had kind of, though she hadn't admitted it to herself, unsettled her quite a bit. Inigo had been super cool and nice though...  

[Suudonym]

Rem stopped her circling in front of Gummy to better observe the Totodile, leaning her head down and forward in a curious gesture. This was one of those water-types her trainer had spoken of in the past, like the Vaporeon she might have been. Interesting.

Luke nodded in agreement but gave a resigned shrug, "They're Rockets, after all. We can't ever hope for criminals to play fair." She had been involved in the incident in Kanto as well, so he was certain she understood the sentiment.  

[Gwennythe]

Gummy stared, unblinkingly, back at Rem, silently either now watching her or staring past her.
Slowly his mouth fell open.

Henrietta frowned, and might have let out another huffing sigh except that she thought it might make her look even more like a kid then she could be sometimes.
"Yeah... But why do they do that? It's just really really bad and ruins everything for people and they all cheat and then Gummy and Winglet can't get 'em cuz they're cheating... I really wanted to help! I wanna go where they're hiding and just get 'em all to go away and stop it!"  

[Suudonym]

Rem tilted her head askance in confused curiosity, turning a small circle to observe the Totodile from another angle. She wasn't quite sure what to think of this creature.

"They're criminals," he repeated, though he knew that it couldn't be left so simply. There were criminals who were murderers just as well as there were criminals who were tax evaders, after all. "There must be some kind of goal the organization is trying to achieve, something they're willing to break all the rules for. There are all kinds of people like that… People who trespass to get somewhere faster, or who steal money to buy something they want… or even people who kill others to protect themselves or the people important to them." He paused to flex the tension from the fingers of his uninjured hand. "At the conference they said their goal is world domination. I don't know what their motivation is, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing they'd give up just from being smacked around a bit." Especially if this was the third time they'd risen to that goal.  

[Gwennythe]

The Totodile snapped twice and then his mouth slowly fell open again, but his stare never really seemed to vary.

Henrietta didn't look very convinced as Luke started to try and explain.
"Yeah but the League's here now and they totally arrested some right? So we could all go and kick them off the island and tell them 'no!' and make them stop!"
She might have been a little too young to remember the events of her hometome, Goldenrod, and things that had happened in Kanto.
"I don't get why anyone would be mean like that and ruin everything... Why can't they just be like other people and be nice... Not like those trainers though!" She quickly amended, remembering the hall again. "They were acting really dumb and mean too!"  

[Suudonym]

Rem blinked, startled, at the unexpected movement, and tilted her head in the opposite direction, eyes narrowed discerningly. Somehow she felt she was being tested.

"I don't really know a whole lot about the League," he admitted, raising a hand to the back of his neck, "but they've already been in Kodo for a year, right? It can't be that easy." Much as he really would have liked it to be. The fact stood, however, that in that entire year since the League's arrival in the region, practically nothing had outwardly changed.

"I think they probably don't all want to be mean," he said thoughtfully. "Team Rocket's as mean to their own members as they are to us. People who decide they want to quit are killed. They couldn't get away even if they wanted to." He moved a hand to pat Tartarus's cold flank as the Aggron, tired of waiting for Rem, came to stand at his side. "The Rocket they showed that looked like me was my brother. He was kidnapped as a child and forced to join. Rosie and I had pokemon stolen, but he returned them both. There are mean trainers like the ones at the conference, and there are nice Rockets too, I think."  

[Gwennythe]

Gummy was, once more, standing perfectly still, 'watching' the Jolteon.

"Yeah but not /properly/ here! They didn't have gyms or /anything/!" Henrietta insisted- a fact that she'd actually only realised /after/ getting to the island. "And they didn't arrest people, I think, but they have now!" She then fell silent listening as Luke explained how 'mean' Team Rocket was, even to their own members.
Her eyes widened a bit, shocked apparently, at the idea they'd kill the people who wanted to quit and then frowned, sorry but also a little confused as he spoke about Asch.
"Oh... I'm sorry! Man, I didn't know about him..." Henrietta, with her eyes still wide, apologised but looked aghast "So he's a Rocket? A 'nice' one?" The information was shocking enough that she wasn't sure what to do with it. Clearly the 'go kick all the rockets off the island' idea wasn't so good if there were 'good' ones... She looked down, looking as though she was thinking hard, and kicked at the grass.  

[Suudonym]

Slowly, without breaking her gaze, Rem lowered herself to the ground where she performed a swift roll to the side, watching to see how - or if - the Totodile would react.

"Well, that's true," he ceded, "but there's a chance they'll do something instead of gyms. Maybe even something unique to Kodo… though I'm not sure what." Alder had seemed to think it was a good idea, but even the Champion himself had said that he was only a representative and didn't have the authority to make any change by himself. The fact that they'd made arrests was also a positive; hopefully they would be able to get some useful information from them, though he supposed that would put them at risk of being labeled disposable.

"I don't know about 'nice,'" Luke said with a faint laugh. "He had a pretty nasty personality sometimes, but he definitely helped us much more than he hurt us. And there was one time that I ran into a Rocket who said she was involved because it was the only way she had to work on making new medicines." Honestly that chick had seemed a bit crazy, but her intentions had seemed true enough, if not somewhat disjointed. "I don't know what all kind of people join Team Rocket, but I'm sure there are plenty that regret the decision, or that had no choice."