[FIN] Winter Wonderland

[Suudonym]

It had not taken long for Luke to become weary of the embassy. He felt like a child being tossed into the pool and asked to help coach the Olympic swim team. Indeed he was as good as a child to many of his coworkers - just a little lordling, fresh out of his coming of age ceremony, who had ridden his father's coattails right up into a seat of power. The entirety of his knowledge and experience was encapsulated in about a year's worth of halfhearted study from a fairly small collection of books that he repeatedly derided as boring. He was far from qualified for the position he had been given, and he was certain that everyone at the embassy knew it. How could they ever suspect otherwise when he had to ask the very people he was supposed to supervise how to complete the most basic tasks?

The sighs, the rolling of their eyes, the little tinges of sarcasm to their tone when they called him Ambassador Fabre - but what was most frustrating was the feeling that he was supposed to be able to do it. His father had called the position his "introduction to politics." Luke gave his every effort to remain optimistic that he would eventually fall into a niche, but in the meantime it was all very stressful and plainly unlikeable. He'd taken to leaving a little earlier in the mornings, an extra jacket between his uniform and his winter coat, and coasting around a bit aloft his Pidgeot. The snowy landscape of the forests south of Camphoreon in the early morning light was a pleasant scene, if a chilly one, and of course Leste appreciated the opportunity to spread her wings.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Winter in the mountains had an air of eeriness about it, not just from the thick layers of snow that covered every inch of ground, the skeletal frames of the trees reaching out their spindly arms in all directions, but from the complete silence and stillness of the aria.

The nights storms had provided for a fresh thick layer of snow for the morning, just barely ending before the sun even started to climb back into the sky.
It was way too early, and way to cold for anyone to really be enjoying themselves out here.
It was that miserable through that could be read on the tired scowls of two men, standing almost knee deep in the mountain snow.
the tallest of the two, his hair covered in a hat that was pulled low over head forehead, his glazed eyes staring blankly ahead through the trees with intense boredom.

"There isn't anything out here, Kyle." The second man said, his voice partly muffled from a scarf that he had half wrapped around his face, lifting his eyes to the man that he was standing next to, not tone carrying a hint of suggestion. It was obvious that he wanted to leave.
Whatever that implied for the taller of the men was expressed with a frustrated sigh.
"What good is sitting around the van?" He growled back, but seemed to take his partners concern, and turned to walk away.

"Hey, maybe we'll find some pokemon on the way back," The scarf suggested with encouragement "This is winter you know, they're all usually hiding and asleep by now. Lucky bastards. But when they get the van fixed the Agents going to want us there to we can go."

Using the path that the taller man was creating with his stride, making it easy to shuffle through the snow after his disgruntled partner.
They traveled in silence, having no conversation to share between the two of them.

The two didn't make it very far back down the mountain when the shorter of the two suddenly slapped a gloved hand on Kyle's shoulder, and in an excited voice called "s**t, s**t, s**t! Look."

Startled, Kyle followed his partners pointed finger to the sky, having to tilt his hat back to see what he was getting all excited and worried about.
"... Is that a Pidgeot?"

"That's a Pidgeot, with a trainer on it."

"You sure that's not one of ours?"

Pulling his face out of his scarf, as he took a moment to shuffle around his pockets, before pulling out a spotting scope.
"... s**t, No, that's a trainer. What are they doing out here this early?"

The taller of the men suddenly got a look of excitement that countered the more concerned look of his partner. earning him an arched brow from the shorter man.
"They might spot the van if he keep that up."
He didn't sound too concerned, but soon he had a pokemon out, and Absol who's breath puffed around his cheeks.
"Or maybe he's already seen them. Absol, how about you shoot them down for us."

With his order given, the Absol bounded further up the mountain, keeping and eye on the Pidgeot so he could try and move himself in a position with a clear shot.
It was a long shot, but after he was perched high enough on one of the trees the Absol opened his mouth, and with a burst of cold fire an ice beam at the flying pokemon. while the two men below waited with anticipation, one with a scope pressed to his eye.  

[Suudonym]

Luke honestly wasn't paying much attention to the ground - granted, he likely would have noticed the van and the people around it eventually due to the poor cover in the forest's deciduous areas. As it was, though, he mostly kept close to Leste for warmth, enjoying the last moments he had before he would need to return to Camphoreon towards the embassy. With a sigh and a word to his ride, the bird began a slow loop around to redirect them towards the city when Lorelei, ever present even if not visible at his trainer's shoulder, caught sight of the incoming Ice Beam in his peripheral vision and squeaked a warning to the person and pokemon pair.

Though the warning came too late, Leste reflexively attempted to dodge nonetheless, veering harshly away from the attack but failing to prevent it from clipping her wing. The force of the impact pitched her sideways, in spite of her efforts to steady herself in response to her rider's calls. Said rider could do little to take control of the situation - such was the risk of being airborne in such a way - and lost his breath as he was separated from his mount. In moments he was plummeting towards trees and ground, and without wasting the time to spare a single thought, he instinctively raised his arms to protect his head and resigned himself to the fall.  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Oh s**t!" Ryan yelled, lowering the scope from his eye when he saw the Ice Beam hit, and the trainer fall.

"YES!" Kyle threw his fists in the air when the attack not only hit, but with delight saw that it dislodged the trainer from his Pokemon.
"Ten bucks says he's dead." Kyle laughed, and picking up his long stride again he busted his way toward where the trainer was falling.

"First pick of his pokemon if he's not!" retorted the shorter.

Absol didn't sit idly by, aware of his owner's movements, he shot another Ice Beam at the Pidgeot, just in case  

[Suudonym]

Leste, dismayed by the loss of her trainer, beat her large wings rapidly to right herself, taking note as another Ice Beam approached. She was struck, but she took the attack directly, allowing herself to remain steady and return an angry Whirlwind in the direction from which the ice-type move had come.

There wasn't much that Luke was aware of outside of the sensation of falling until the sudden, jarring interruption of that fall, the sounds of branches snapping and fabric tearing, the minuscule little pricks and scratches, and then a soft, cold punctuation succeeded by a rag-doll-esque tumbling. When everything finally stopped, save for the internal sense of whirling, he carefully lowered his arms from his face and squinted up at the green boughs of coniferous trees he found himself beneath. With an expulsive sigh, he let his arms fall to his sides, trying to pinpoint exactly what had happened. The loudest thought in his mind was the wonder of whether or not this meant he could avoid going to the embassy for the day.  

[Blood_Goddess]

Unable to react to the attack in time before it struck the trees that the Absol was standing in, sending splintering wood flying as the Absol its self was knocked from the heights, hitting and disappearing under the thick snow with a dull -thud-

Ryan did his best to keep up with the taller man, the others excitement very much clear with the energetic way he moved, flinging snow as he shuffled through it.
Trees and snow was all either were able to see though.
"Where is he?" Kyle asked, stopping and looking up "Do you think he's in a tree?"

"Ugh I hope not, that would be a messy sight."

The comment just drew a smirk from Kyle. Again feeling the slap of Ryan's hand as he pointed through the trees. "Over there."  

[Suudonym]

Well, he certainly wasn't going to accomplish anything just lying there in the snow, except maybe to get frostbite, and so with a quiet groan Luke moved to push himself upright, checking on his physical status as he went. He didn't feel that anything was broken, miraculously, though it certainly did say a lot about his lifestyle that he could discern normal soreness from sprains and fractures with relative confidence. He certainly was sore though, as one might expect from falling out of the sky. He extricated himself from the snow and confirmed that he was indeed mostly unharmed, finding long tears in his clothing and discovering that the trainer belt he used to carry his pokeballs had come unfastened somewhere in the course of things. Disgruntled, he raised a hand to his shoulder, speaking quietly, "You okay, Lorelei?" Synonymously, 'are you there, Lorelei,' the answer to both apparently positive as a small, unseen paw responded to the hand by tapping it lightly.  

[Blood_Goddess]

There was a moment when both men, making their way to where the ground was disturbed both stopped at the sight of a young man sitting up out of the snow, and gaped in utter disbelief.

"Holy s**t-" Ryan breathed "...You owe me ten bucks,"

"How the hell did he..." Kyle fall quiet, before he suddenly snapped back to earth and blinked, glancing over at his partner for a moment before he grinned lightly.

"Heeeey!" He called out to the trainer in the snow, waving a hand out and starting to make his way over "You alright!? You fell pretty far!"  

[Suudonym]

He wondered what had happened to Leste. It was an ice-type attack, so maybe a Snover or something... But why would it attack a Pidgeot out of the blue like that? This definitely wasn't the first time they had flown over the forest, but it sure was the first time they'd been attacked like that.

The sound of someone calling to him put him on an immediate alert, and he turned to identify the source. A couple of people, strangers. He turned his head slightly, puzzled. It wasn't really a great time of day, or great weather for that matter, to go for a hike, but he didn't know where Leste had wound up and didn't know where he was relative to Sandalwood or the mountain tunnel back to Camphoreon, so it hardly seemed wise to scorn their company. "Yeah," he replied, "I'm fine. Don't suppose you saw what exactly caused that fall, though? Or what happened to my Pidgeot?" He assumed she was probably all right, but the evergreens in the immediate area were too thick for him to survey the sky and find her - or for her to survey the earth and find him.  

[Blood_Goddess]

"You're fine." Kyle repeated with a breath, and a laugh, drawing himself closer to the young man and reaching a hand out in a gesture to help him stand. "No, we didn't see, just that you were flying and then you were falling. You don't know what it was?"

Now that they were close enough, other then the difference in accessories, Ryan's scarf and Kyle' s hat, It wasn't had to tell that the rest of their outfit was practically identical, black coats, heavy and outdoor worthy, with a red R at the breast of their jackets  

[Suudonym]

They certainly... didn't make much effort to hide their identities, did they? Luke very much missed his pokemon. He was thankful for Lorelei's presence, but the Mew wasn't accustomed to fighting as a Mew. Mentally he paused to remind himself that not every Rocket was ill-intentioned, but the fact that they didn't seem to feel the need to conceal the telling red Rs on their clothing spoke little of any shame they might have had to be associated with the organization. Uneasily he accepted the help to rise, shaking his head, "An Ice Beam, I think. Or an Aurora Beam, or something similar."  

[Blood_Goddess]

"Ice Beam?" Kyle burst sounding surprise, grasping his hand as the Trainer hand, grinning as he helped pull the red head to his feet.
Ryan hung back, watching the two with silence just as an Absol landed from a great height at the man's side, shaking snow off of his thick fur.

"You've got a good eye for that kind of thing." Kyle pointed out, and without letting go of Luke's hand, jerked the young man up more forcefully toward him and brought a knee up to his stomach. "You must be good at spotting things huh?"  

[Suudonym]

Luke had indeed learned to be observant when it mattered, and the appearance of the Absol didn't escape his notice either. He wasn't a stranger to Absol, nor to the types of moves they could learn, and it occurred to him as the man's knee knocked the air from his stomach that he really should have been less surprised. As he fought to recover his breath, he spared a moment to be glad that he was in the minority for hand dominance and aimed an upward strike at the man's nose.  

[Blood_Goddess]

With a stance with a better advantage, but was still visibly surprised to see a fist come flying into his face. jerking back not too quick enough to avoid the hit completely. the first making contact with his cheek.

Something dangerous flashed over the man's face, a build of rage with a smile after he was hit, and again he kicked out at Luke "Stupid PUNK!"

Ryan took a step forward when his partner was hit, but stopped when the taller man lashed out again, hesitating with the Absol.  

[Suudonym]

It was a sad testament to the way he had lived his life that he felt more at home while physically endangered than he did in the pristine, fancy halls of the embassy. He gritted his teeth and dug in his heels to bear the force of the kick without staggering greatly, and, keeping a tight grip on the hand that had initially been extended, dropped into a crouching posture to lower his center of gravity and pulled with the effort to flip the man completely.