Crystal pet Connie’s head, giving her a quiet thanks before returning her to her ball. Stuffing the ball into her pocket, Crystal turned to the kid. She rose a brow, biting back a scoff and put a hand to her hip.
“Oh yes it is, sweetheart. Sure, they were fools to think that, to bet so much money; Skarmory’s are inherently strong. But you just went ahead and thought they’d pay willy nilly.” She looked over her nails, seeming much more interested in them than the kid. “If you’re going to hustle properly, love, learn to size up your mark. And if you can’t defend yourself, keep your Pokemon out.” Crystal picked some dirt from under her nail and looked at the kid again. “Better luck next time, darling.” And with that, she began walking away. That was enough excitement for her for now.
While the sun was up, at least. Once it was dark she had plans.
She huffed again, ears reddening with embarrassment. Her pride was more than a little wounded, keeping her from replying to the woman even as she walked away. She sat in the alley for awhile, but did let Saebel out in case the men came back. The bird crawled into his trainer’s lap, trilling up at her as she mulled over her next move.
She definitely needed a brace of some sort, but didn’t know what kind she’d need. Were there different types of braces for hands? Not to mention, she’d eventually need to go home and face Robin….and whatever yelling she was going to receive.
Instead, she stood, racing after the stranger, Saebel flying up to perch on her shoulder.
"Hey, wait!" she called. "Where am I supposed to get a brace?"
“Well, lucky for you Connie here is very good at what she does. And I’m good at resetting a broken bone.” Crystal would be long dead if she and Connie weren’t good at treating injuries. Crystal looked over the kid’s hand. “The bone is most likely cracked, but not shattered. Connie can fix the bruises, but not the bone.” Not yet, at least. “You’re going to need a brace for a little while. As for your nose…” She placed two fingers under her chin and lifting her head to get a better look at the kid’s nose.
Connie, meanwhile, butted her head against the kid’s uninjured hand and gave her a smile. She moved in closer, gentle claws taking the kid’s injured hand and turning it over. She looked it over, ears twitching, feelers running over the injury so light it’d feel like a feather. Then Connie hovered her paws over the injury, and her paws began to glow. The pain in the kid’s hand dissipated, as did the bruises that had begun to form. Once finished, she sat back and looked to Crystal.
“The bone is fractured, but not displaced, so I don’t need to set it. Connie an do what she needs to, and you’ll be fine. Aside from the blood on you.” Crystal backed off and stood up, allowing Connie to come closer and use her healing magic on the kid’s face.
Crystal checked outside the alley, just making sure those men were really gone. Damaged pride lead to blindly attacking. Blindly attacking could include guns. Not to mention she didn’t want anymore unwanted attention, but thankfully people didn’t seem interested at all.
Connie, once finished, returned to Crystal’s side and Crystal looked back at the kid. “Think before you hustle next time, love. It’ll leave you with less broken bones and bruises.”
Rori sucked a breath in, expecting pain as the audino took her injured hand. Instead, the pain faded away, as if she’d taken a ton of aspirin. She fought the urge to wiggle her fingers, after all, the stranger hadn’t told her exactly which bones in her hand were cracked. It could be a joint, for all she knew. Unfortunately, a brace wasn’t going to make it past Robin either.
After her nose was as healed as it was going to get, she considered adding that she’d been kicked in the ribs enough for some serious pain, but she knew from previous experience that they weren’t broken. Sure, the bruise would be disgusting, but it was incredible she’d been helped as much as is.
“It’s not my fault they underestimated my skarmory’s battle experience,” she huffed, too caught up in a wave of angry embarrassment to remember to thank the pair. “They’re the ones idiotic enough to bet so much money.”
An artsy look we haven’t seen on her before, and one I’m loving as much as the rest. Ashley calls it “Street classy” and says she’s growing up and wants to transition into a more mature look. Also, note her awesome room. I love blue.
Crystal watched him closely. She didn’t take her eyes off him until he and his friends were gone. Click click click and her knife was gone. Stuffed back into her coat pocket. She pulled out a pokeball and released Connie. Connie’s ears flapped about as she shook her head. She licked her paws and looked up at Crystal, her feelers twitching.
Crystal knelt down beside the kid. “They’re gone, love. You’re alright,” her tone became much softer, “My Audino can help you, but I need you to to show her your injuries.”
Slowly, the brunette sat up, trying very hard to focus on the pair in front of her through the haze of pain and blood loss. "I think my nose is broken, and my hand might be too," she whimpered, leaning her head carefully against one of the brick walls. She was cold and tired and humiliated and in so, so much pain.
She held out her un-injured hand to the 'mon in greeting, having never seen an audino up close before. Its presence was soothing, at least, even before it had started using its healing magic.
“All due respect, love,” Crystal’s voice lost all sweetness. She spoke smoothly, but the warning in her tone was clear. “It’s my business now. I’ll only say it one more time: Leave them alone or I’ll break your nose.”
“That’s just adorable, doll. You think you can take both of us down? Look at us!” The one on the left chortled again. He was going down first, his voice pissed her off. “Go home before you break a nail.”
Crystal’s gaze snapped to the third man when she noticed him move towards the three of them. She noticed him kick the kids arm. She noticed the pressure he applied.
The man finally took his foot off of Rori, but his attention was focused on the blade pressed firmly to his neck. He opened his mouth once to make a dumbass comment, but noticed his friends were taken out, so he shut it again.
This weird game of chicken carried on for about a minute before he fully stepped away, turned, and ran away, leaving Rori and Crystal behind. After a moment, his friends followed, not yet upset that they had basically been thrown under the bus.
Rori had stopped screaming, but she didn’t seem to register that the men were gone or that Crystal was standing over her. Instead, she curled in on herself, shutting her eyes and trembling as she waited stupidly for the pain to go away.
Hyde noticed it first. He noticed the two men standing in the alley, another further in, a body at the man’s feet. Crystal saw her shadow stretching towards it, and was the next to notice them. A brow rose and scoffed. Please, as if she hadn’t done that kind of shit before either. It wasn’t her business. She turned her gaze and kept walking.
Hyde, however, had other plans. Crystal’s shadow kept stretching and stretching towards to alley. Dammit. Doesn’t he know the meaning of ‘subtlety’? She huffed and followed him. The idiot thugs had their backs turned to her, and thanks to the snow her heels were more quiet. She didn’t know it was amateur hour today.
When Crystal’s eyes landed on the body at the third man’s feet, when she registered that they were only a kid, she moved in.
“Kid or not,” the man on the left replied, “the brat punched him first. It’s self defense.” Still, the look the woman was giving him was unnerving. Maybe he should warn his buddy...
“All due respect, lady,” the second man spoke, not sounding respectful at all, “this is none of your business.” It seemed like the pair were going to foolishly ignore the woman’s undisguised threat.
The third man looked up from Rori, wondering what the hell was going on over there. He had just stepped towards the three when he noticed his punching bag reaching for her pokeball again. “Still have some fight left in you after all,” he taunted, using his foot to shove her arm away and smash her hand against the concrete. “Too bad you’re so reliant on those pokemon a’yours.”
He trapped Rori’s fingers under his heavy boot, very rapidly applying painful pressure, oblivious to anything going on around him aside from Rori’s screaming.
“You’ve been in Hoenn for a while, no?” Robin opened the door and let Rori step in first. Everything looked almost exactly the same when she was last here. Of course it did, Robin hated it when things were moved around. For good reason, of course. “Shoes off by the door, and coat on the rack. There should be a blanket on the couch. Go wrap yourself up and I’ll make somethin’.” Robin paused for a moment.
“Missed you too, kid. It’s been significantly more quiet since you left.” She lightly bumped her shoulder against Rori’s arm. “And the Pokemon have been… a little upset for a bit since you left,” she said whilst walking into the kitchen. “You hungry or just want hot chocolate or somethin’?”
“Mm. Even in the middle of winter, you can wear shorts in Hoenn,” she replied, stepping inside and discarding her shoes and coat where she was instructed to. Thankfully, her shirt and jeans were only just slightly damp.
She returned the friendly bump, beaming at Robin’s response. “Hot chocolate would be amazing,” she added, finding the blanket and wrapping herself tightly in it. Even curled up in a ball, she was still shivering a bit, but she knew it’d stop before long.
Robin’s farm was the first familiar place she’d been to in a long time. Hoenn had become familiar, of course, but it didn’t have the homey feeling she was experiencing right now. She felt at ease for the first time in what seemed forever, even knowing that she’d be getting up at dawn in the morning.
“Has much happened since I’ve been gone?” she asked.
“Listen guys,” Rori spoke carefully, falling into her easy routine of innocent bystander, “I really don’t have that much money on me. I just needed to win enough to buy some food for my skarmory, you wouldn’t take that away from somebody, right? I really didn’t know he had that kind of fighting power in him.”
She was dropping rapid-fire lies, as if that might get the three much larger men crowding around her to back off. It wasn’t her fault that they’d gotten played. It wasn’t her fault that Saebel had recently perfected the art of acting much weaker than he really was.
Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to be satisfied with her reasoning, instead very deliberately backing her into a corner in an an otherwise abandoned alleyway. Subtly, she reached behind her, feeling for Nacht’s ball. If she could just release him, he’d get her out of this mess.
“Don’t bring your damn pokemon into this,” was all the warning she received before her arm was yanked out from behind her, the momentum throwing her into one of the surrounding brick walls. In retaliation, she threw a blind punch, and while there wasn’t near enough strength behind it, she did get lucky and hit the man in the diaphragm, knocking the wind out of him.
The other two men, his cronies of sorts, Rori realized, moved to attack, but instead stepped back to block her escape as their friend stood back up.
Well, she was clearly fucked.
“Sorry, I didn’t--” she began, only to be cut off as she dodged what turned out to be a feint, instead lining herself up perfectly for a punch to the nose, wincing as she heard a sickening crack. The blood rush began almost instantly, coating her lips and spilling onto the concrete below her.
Robin was going to kill her.
She had no time to dodge the next blow, even if the pain hadn’t been distracting her. The next hit was to her core, causing her to drop to the cold ground, smacking her head in the process. Instinctively, she curled up even as she was kicked again and again, waiting for the pain to be over. Maybe they’d grow bored if she’d just stop responding, if she could just stop whimpering.
Robin blinked, her eyes darting to where she heard the voice. She blinked again, then stepped forward, the snow crunching beneath her boots. She stopped a little short of arms length in front of Rori. Robin reached out, her warm fingers brushing against Rori’s cold, cold cheek.
Her fingers ran along Rori’s face, feeling her nose, the shape of her eyes, touching her hair. Robin knew it. She knew it the moment she heard that voice. Her lips twitched, forming into a small but happy grin. Though her grin fell soon when she touched Rori’s coat. “What the hell are you wearing, Strawberry? You have any idea how cold it is?” She waved her hand. “Never mind, come on inside. The rest of you, back to bed!” She said to the Pokemon. They made noises of protests, but did as they were told. Some of them lingered to give Rori and Robin loving nudges before heading back to their spots.
Robin looked back at Rori. “There’s room in the cave for Nacht. Oh, don’t think I didn’t smell him from here. He needs a bath.” She smiled some. “Come on, before you catch a damn cold, let’s get you out of that coat.”
“It’s very cold,” Rori agreed, unable to keep the tremble out of her voice as she shivered. “I don’t remember winters in Kalos being this cold.” She moved to grab her small bag and Nacht’s saddle off of him, freeing him to continue bouncing around in the snow. The bat dragon bounded up to Robin as he was acknowledged, nuzzling her side before heading in the direction of the cave.
“It has been awhile since he’s been bathed...” Rori replied, frowning. She couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d given him a bath. Or the last time the pair had actually stopped moving long enough to find somewhere convenient to bathe him. If Nacht smelled....she didn’t smell, did she? She’d showered just yesterday but that didn’t mean anything.
“I missed you,” she added, swiping her numb fingers under her nose to wipe away the snot that had began to run. “I missed you so much. And all of the pokemon and the farm and...everything except the damn snow,” she laughed.
The more nocturnal Pokemon just stood there. Staring, registering, staring some more. Luna was the first to run to the newcomer, yipping and howling. She wasn’t the last. More Pokemon noticed who this girl was, more Pokemon ran to her.
Rori. It’s Rori. She’s back. Rori’s back, Rori’s back, Rori’s back! In all her excitement, Luna tackled Rori into the snow, licking her face and yipping and barking and unable to keep still because it’s Rori! Rori’s home! Oh, hopefully she’ll stay! Robin will be so, so happy!
“Hey! Quiet down, you dolts! It’s dark out and people are trying to sleep!” A voice hollered. Speak of the devil. The Pokemon parted ways for Robin. She looked less than pleased to be tromping around in the snow with just a pair of snow boots and a coat halfheartedly thrown over her pajamas. Fiona—her Houndoom—stood close to help keep Robin warm, but it could only do so much.
Robin stared ahead, right past Rori, her eyes intense and her expression less-than pleased. “And just what the absolute hell do you think you’re doing trespassing on my property?” She demanded. “We’re closed, for starters, and if you thought you could steal a Pokemon from me you got another thing com—Luna, sit!” Luna did just that, sitting herself beside Rori and quieting her happy little yips. But she couldn’t stop herself from thumping her tail into the snow.
“Hey guys,” Rori spoke, nervously eyeing the growing crowd of pokemon. “Luna,” she added, “Luna, no, please do not do what you’re about to--”
She was cut off as the umbreon launched herself into the brunette, landing them both into the snow. Rori laughed even as her pathetic excuse for a coat quickly soaked through, scratching behind the fox’s ears with her bare and very cold fingers. Nacht, her noivern, bounced through the snow amongst the other pokemon, large tail wagging crazily as if he were an overgrown puppy.
A wide grin spread across her face as Robin approached and she fought the urge to do as Luna had done and tackle the shorter woman into the snow. It’d been so long since she’d seen her last, but she did at least remember that Robin would absolutely not take kindly to be tackled into the snow.
“Sorry, I wasn’t paying attention to the time when I landed,” she said, still grinning up at the older woman. “But no, I wasn’t planning on stealing a pokemon or anything.” Rori stood, brushing snow off of her clothing and waiting for a response from Robin.
To say Rori could be a bit of a shithead would be a massive understatement, but she knew Robin would be pleased she was back. At least hopefully, not that there was any time to second guess herself. Although, maybe this wasn’t the best idea...
There was no guarantee that Robin would recognize her or that the new pokemon on the farm wouldn’t be hostile to her and her noivern,especially with no previous warning. The brunette dismounted her bat dragon, pulling her flight goggles off of her face and scrubbing the snow from them.
She gave Nacht a friendly pat as thanks for the ride before wandering towards the main house. It was fucking freezing outside, not that a summer in Hoenn had helped her with any cold tolerance.
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