[Felicity Fosse]

Felicity would be a dirty liar if she said a part of her wasn't excited to hear that they'd be meeting up for the mission in the abandoned graveyard.  It just screamed of the beginnings for a good tabletop horror game.  She partially hoped whoever was assigned the mission with her would be as enthused with their situation as she was.  Felicity hadn't actually made much time to get to know her fellow members, so she was admittedly excited to learn more about at least some of them.  Her hands were tucked away in the pockets of her black knitted sweater-dress as she walked through the strange grave fog, looking around for signs of her comrades. Under her sweater dress she wore a pair of pink leggings with a pair of black laced up boots, and her dark hair was tied back in a loose, twisted bun. 

Surely they wouldn't take too much longer.  Even if she was meeting up lower levels, there was no reason for them to be late.  Felicity, for one, was thrilled to have her first mission.  The further she moved up, the more connections she could manage.  Between that and the rumors she picked up in the bar...  she'd be able to get all the information she needed before too long.  Her eyes zoned out a bit as they glazed over the graves, searching for any sign of what they were there to find.

---

With Naveta Lejori & Arabella Quintanilla

_{Felicity's team is Marion the Shuppet and Moloch the Spiritomb}

[Naveta Lejori]

Naveta had a particular ritual she did every time she needed to do something that required finesse and proximity to people.  It was one of the few things that could actually get her to clean up a bit.  Her usual messy state wasn't that way out of any kind of malice, but rather of complete obliviousness and her tendency to get really focused on one or two things and forget about everything else.  When her task was refocused on a person, or a group of people, her mindset changed.  Most of the time these missions involved stealth and possibly shadowing someone, so anything that would give away her position was really bad, and that included being on the smelly side.  Granted, the mission tonight probably required no amount of stealth and little to no finesse, but it was good to be prepared anyway.  Thus for once her body and clothes were actually reasonably clean.

This ultimately didn't make her look much better than usual, but that was fine as far as she was concerned.  It's not like people would be able to smell messy hair or beat up clothing.  That said, it was clear she put some effort into getting cleaned up, she just gave up partway through because it was difficult and a waste of time.  Rather than the usual dusty yellow, her hair was its natural platinum blonde self.  The top was rather neat, but right about at the point where her skull met her neck, it suddenly became a tangled mess.  It was difficult to even call it hair at that point, it was just a wad.  

The top showed some signs of being pulled like she attempted to brush it, but gave up rather quickly.  Her clothes were in even worse shape, and probably just needed to be replaced at this point. They were simple, just a thick tshirt and jeans, but they were obviously quite old and were clearly used far beyond their limits. Even though the top was black, it showed obvious signs of stains. There were obvious sweat stains around the armpits, one that came from some kind of dark liquid around the top left of her stomach, just below her ribs and a few others of varying colors. It had been torn several times, and it showed. There were a few patches and hastily sewn up places, and the bottom of the sleeves and the bottom of the shirt itself were pretty thoroughly shredded. Given the jeans were made of a thicker material they were in slightly better shape, but not much. The knees clearly had multiple patches put over them, but it was starting to wear through again and there were a few other tears going up the legs. Her shoes were in the best shape, but even they had numerous scratches and had long since lost their luster. They were just a basic pair of black combat boots, and they were the only piece of clothing she owned that didn't have holes in it. Granted, one of the shoelaces broke awhile back, so she had to lace one of them up only halfway because the string simply wasn't long enough to go all the way up anymore.

While the rest of her was now clean at least, she still couldn't be called orderly. Her fingernails were free of any dirt and blood that they normally had stuck under them, but they were all still broken and jagged. Her breath was tolerable, but her teeth were still yellow and stained. Her face was clean, but she still had massive bags and dark rings around her eyes, as though she hadn't slept in about a decade. All in all, she was still very much herself, she just didn't smell quite as bad.

In the end, she still wondered why she bothered to go through all the trouble for a mission like this. If a spy was going to get exposed by bullies of all things, they were probably a terrible spy to begin with. If a spy had to be defended by their mother of all people, they were probably even worse. As an informant, she knew the value of information, but if your spy was shit there was little that could be done about it. They should just find someone more competent to do the job. Spending resources to protect your precious babu was just bad form. Somehow this organization made her think even less of them by the day, and that was really saying something. First she was just a courier and now she was a babysitter. This really was a waste of her talents. In the end though, doing something this stupid was worth it for the notoriety. As long as they liked her, Harmonia would likely be a safe haven for her while all her other problems blew over, and they'd continue to give her a bit of funding to study this place.

Now all she had to think about was how she was going to go about this. Naveta supposed that she couldn't just high kick the bullies in the face and be done with it. Visible signs of injuries might end up causing more problems than they'd help, and she was certainly capable of causing them. She didn't know how to fight, but all her work in the field made her very strong. It was obvious just looking at her, especially when she was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. In the end, it would probably come down to a stupid pokemon battle like everything seems to. Well, whatever, it meant that she was going to have to think in terms of what would be most effective. Not what would defeat their pokemon the best, but what would make them writhe in complete shame so they'd never want to experience that again, and they'd never want anyone to hear about it. She had just the pokemon for it; that silly flower pokemon that she found recently. It was small, white and adorable, and had some attacks that may be effective against their pokemon. Cirque, her zoroark, could do something similar. As long as they saw something cute and adorable it didn't matter exactly what they were fighting in the end. She didn't have an obvious third choice, so she went with her rotom for defensive purposes. And maybe because the idea of beating them up with a thing possessing a washing machine amused her.

With any luck, all this would be straight-forward enough and then she could do something less embarrassing with her time.

---

Naveta was familiar enough with the island by now that it didn't take long for her to work her way to the old graveyard. Granted, she wasn't as familiar with it because there wasn't a whole lot to study here. Sure, she might be able to learn something about the human history of the island, but that wasn't what she was interested in. To her, this place was just dirt, dead grass and boring man-altered rocks. Her partner for this mission seemed to disagree with her feelings though. She looked absolutely giddy. Given the circumstances, she wasn't sure if this girl just had low standards in missions to get excited about or if she was just on drugs. All things considered, she wasn't sure if she wanted to find out.

"You seem excited. I still can't tell who's more in need of a beating, these bullies or the stupid kid we're supposed to be helping."

Naveta stretched and took a seat on one of the graves. It was times like this that she cursed how short she was. With her sitting on top of the grave, her feet couldn't actually reach the ground. It made it that much more uncomfortable as a seat. She was under the impression that a third person was supposed to show up, but as always she didn't intend to rely on either of her partners. In the end, she could only trust her own abilities, and relying too much on others could cause everything to fail. It was better to be prepared for them to do nothing and be pleasantly surprised when they could do more than standing around drooling than the other way around.

At least this time gave her a bit to examine this new person. Naveta had never seen her before, and while she supposed she should introduce herself at some point, it didn't seem that important right now. The first thing she noticed was that this person appeared to be an adult. That actually made her mildly happy given the last person she went on a mission with was some idiot kid who probably thought he was being super cool when he was really just a waste of space. It was difficult to tell much else about her. Her clothing suggested that she cared about her appearance some, but her hair showed that practicality was more important. She still couldn't quite peg was she was so happy, but that would likely reveal itself in time.

((Team is Cirque the Zoroark and Chalk the Flabebe))

[Arabella Quintanilla]

Almost…alllmost…almost…there! Arabella pursed her lips at the reflection before her, loving how her lipstick had glided across her lips so easily. Pleased with the results of her preening, Arabella spent another moment appraising herself from every angle before snapping the compact mirror shut. Was she going to be late to whatever the hell this ‘mission’ was because of her little routine ritual? Probably. Did she care? Not in the slightest. Arabella had read the mission summary before she signed up for it and nothing about this work was time sensitive. The woman hummed slightly, pocketing her mirror into her purse before smirking to herself. It wasn’t time sensitive except save for the kid himself. He may be in some trouble his ‘big bad gang’ of friends show up late to face a group of pimple faced teenagers. But that wasn’t Arabella’s problem.

And if they happened to be a problem with her timeliness, which Arabella highly doubted, then she would blame it on something else. She’d work the system, spin the lies and smiles, and make sure that she ended up on this Mama O’s good side. This connection was the only reason why Arabella had even taken on a low class mission like this (despite the fact her lack of rank meant she couldn’t have anything more serious). Who knew how influential Mama O was given that Team Origin was willing to waste resources to cover a slack jawed kid who couldn’t even infiltrate the Academy without being caught. It meant that he was worth something. Kid O was rightly a fuck up, but his mother was not. And that’s the only thing that mattered to Arabella.

By the time Arabella stepped one foot onto the graveyard, she was almost certain she’d be the last to arrive. She still took the time to light a cigarette before walking further into the ‘oh-so-dark-and-spooky’ place this city called its cemetery. Thigh high boots stomped over the sacred ground, paying no mind to who or what was buried underneath. Had there actually been any substantial light to this place she would’ve worn her sunglasses, but even Arabella had a limit to her theatrics.

It was then she saw two other figures loitering around with no purpose other than to kill time and occupy space. “This must be mine,” she mused to herself, taking a long drag on the cigarette before dropping it to the floor. Arabella saw the older woman first, noticing the glazed look in her eyes right away. Not that promising, the ex-cop thought, but she was well aware of how incorrect first impressions could be. “Don’t fall asleep on us. We’ve only just started,” Arabella winked at the freckled woman.

For a moment Arabella wondered if they were still waiting for the third member to arrive but a quick glance over to the side revealed that was untrue. “Oh!” she exclaimed, taking in the obviously younger member. Then, after noticing the woman’s appearance, the lack of effort...wow, Arceus, this was sad. Arabella said it again. With pity. “Oh…” It was like she was looking at the last pup left in a cardboard box on a rainy city day. She really hoped that girl hadn't actually tried to look nice. That would be even more embarrassing than being a natural slob.  

Knowing she was the oldest out of the whole group, but probably the least ranking of the team, Arabella shrugged at the other two. She was banking that Slack Eyes and Hobo Jane would be better trainers than they were first impressions. “Anyone know where this kid’s supposed to be?”

Arabella is bringing Sissy the Weedle and Stella the Sableye.

[Bena]

Looks like you won't have to find Kid O or his bullies as they have found you. Conveniently there are three Academy students in total for you to face and a very sweaty Kid O watching from the sidelines. The three boys make all kinds of lewd and unoriginal jokes as they see you are their opponents. After they're done beating you they're going to make Kid O wish he hadn't called his girlfriends to fight for him. Jeez. What are these guys, 14? Oh..wait. They send out the following: 

Species: Machop

Gender: Male

Ability: Sheer Force

Moves: Karate Chop | Low Sweep | Focus Energy | Fire Punch 

Species: Croagunk 

Gender: Female

Ability: Dry Skin 

Moves: Feint Attack | Poison Sting | Sucker Punch | Mud-Slap

Species: Meditite

Gender: Male

Ability: Pure Power

Moves: Confusion | High Jump Kick | Meditate | Bullet Punch

[Felicity Fosse]

With as enthralled by the gravestones as she was, Felicity wouldn’t have noticed her teammate sneak up behind her if it wasn’t for Marion fading in from the shadows and getting her attention. Felicity blinked at her, eyes refocusing on the now and turning to see what had gotten her Shuppet in a tizzy. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Marion watching out for her trainer when she dazed out like that, who knew what would have happened to Felicity by now.

She instinctively smiled at seeing another Origin member, but it quickly faltered at the tips when she truly got a good a good look at her. Mainly, that horrible fashion sense. Sure they were just working and not actually going for a night about town, but one would think that it would make sense to look… presentable. For a split second she contemplated offering to take the poor thing shopping when she was distracted by what she was saying. An eyebrow twitched up and she nodded, the now simply polite smile still sitting on her lips. “Of course, what better of a setup to have than a showdown among a graveyard. It almost seems poetic, doesn’t it? Goodness knows how many terrible ‘threats’ we could make here.” Not to mention how thin the veil is here, she thought to herself, deciding against showing how… bewitched by the general creepiness Graveyards had about them. She didn’t know this woman very well and wasn’t entirely sure how much she planned to.

Time would tell on that one, she supposed. Who knew, perhaps the tiny, somewhat smelly, teammate would prove herself. Chuckling a bit, she shrugged at the actual question. “That’s a very good question. We could always contemplate doing both, but that would run the threat of the big-bag-mother that assigned the mission.” The slight smile she had faded when the other girl sat on the gravestone.

Felicity crossed her arms across her chest as Marion seemed to settle onto her shoulder, watching the strange human with an amused grin. “That’s disrespectful to the dead.” It may have been silly to most considering they were all literally criminals, but Felicity had to put her foot down somewhere. She glanced over to the other woman as she spoke up and shook her head, smile returning somewhat. “I wouldn’t dream of it. There’s too much you could miss if you’re not paying attention in a graveyard.”

Watching her reaction to their third member, Felicity’s eyebrows raised as though to say ‘Right?’ but quickly cleared her throat and she glanced over the last woman. It looked like she cared plenty more about how she showed up for the mission than the other, so that was nice. She also showed more skin than one would expect under the current circumstances. Felicity was actually almost jealous. She wished she could dress like that confidently, she thought idly, her hands rubbing the bruises that were hidden under the sleeves of her sweater-dress. She really needed to get back on track with her vitamins, and her nose scrunched in disdain at the thought.

Before she could really open her mouth to give an answer, Marion bumped her head into Felicity’s to get her attention behind them. Turning around with her arms still crossed, she couldn’t help but let out a small snort of laughter at their opponents. She ignored the kids, she always hated children anyway, but did manage to shoot “Kid O” a dark stare of disapproval. Looking back to the Pokemon, she shook her head and reached for one of her black and red engraved Pokeballs, releasing a strange rock, of all things. Shaking her head, her lips curled back in more of a grin, “Don’t you know not to bring one of those to a Ghost Fight?” the stone had seeped a strange blue fog while she spoke, terrifying eyes peering out over a ragged looking mouth as the fog seemed to solidify. Oblivious to how dumb the joke she attempted to make was, she lifted her chin to the Spiritomb. “Moloch, show these jokes how dangerous it is to be out in a graveyard like this. Ominous Wind.”

The Spiritomb’s fog like body hummed, it’s “face” tilting as the swirled pupil in one of it’s eyes faded away, and a strong eerie wind suddenly seemed to flow out of the crack in it’s stone and explode towards the fighting types. Thankfully Felicity and Marion sat far enough out of the actual fight that the Shuppet didn’t get hit in the crosswinds. Moloch seemed to chuckle slightly, and glanced back towards his trainer as the Meditite, their main target, promptly fell on it’s back thanks to the super-effective ghastly wind that just added to the grave fog settling on the ground. The other two seemed worse for the wear, but without the same weakness the Meditite had weren’t close to being out for the count.

Grinning, she nodded to Moloch. “Not bad, Moloch.” She waited a moment, not wanting to take all of the fun for herself, and wanting to see just what her companions were bringing to the table too. Besides, it looked as though the other Pokemon were getting ready to retaliate, and she had to see what exactly that would mean. If they got an attack out, of course.

[Naveta Lejori]

For a moment, all Naveta could do was stare at her teammate with an eyebrow raised?  Poetic?  It was a graveyard, a boring dead field with a bunch of rocks (and normally she'd be the type to get excited about a bunch of rocks).  She was pretty sure this wasn't what her teammate meant, but she just made it so easy.

"I don't know, killing them seems a bit excessive.  More seriously uh..." she scratched her head.  "I don't see why threatening someone here would be any different than anywhere else, unless you're really into puns or something."

Naveta understood the importance of atmosphere when dealing with people, but her methods rarely required it.  She normally appealed to someone's reason rather than base fear or other emotions, and tended to fight with information rather than overt displays of power.  When she wanted to threaten someone, they rarely saw her in person or even knew who was doing it.  She was never particularly good at looking threatening, despite her obvious musculature, likely due to how short, skinny and young-looking she was.  Even looking more unhinged due to not caring about her appearance anymore, and having difficulty finding the time and resources necessary for proper grooming, didn't help that much.  So, even with some amount of understanding of atmosphere she couldn't make much use of it, thus making it not something she thought about often.

She was a little more curious about the other girl's reaction to potentially dealing with the stupid kid as well.  Naveta had some ability to read people, but she wasn't very good with the more subjective parts of reading.  Clothes tended to reveal a lot because there were some pretty straight-forward rules regarding them that she could memorize.  Tone was difficult sometimes, but there were a few rules there she could pick out.  Body language though?  It might as well be like talking to pokemon to her.  Was this woman afraid of the higher ups?  The use of big-bad and the amused chuckle made it sound like she was being sarcastic, but the rest of her words made it sound more serious.  Perhaps it wasn't fear, but rather the desire for approval and possibly respect?  It was something to keep in mind at least.

"I think we'd be doing her a favor.  If we scare, or otherwise humiliated, this kid as badly as we do his bullies maybe he'll finally shape up and stop being so terrible at this."

Her reaction to her taking a seat on one of the rocks got her another stare, and a slow blink.  Sure, they were here to intimidate a bunch of teenagers, but sitting on a gravestone so weathered that you couldn't even make out the name anymore?  Sitting on a faded rock that just marks the location of a corpse that likely rotted away decades ago?  That was just rude.  Was this lady for real?

"Well, they haven't complained yet, so they don't seem to mind too much."

She shifted a few times on her new seat and wondered when the third person was going to show.  Did she leave earlier than she thought she did?  She thought she had been waiting for a little while, but maybe her sense of time was off because this place was just really boring?  Or maybe the other person was just late.  It was hard to tell.  Eventually, she did show up.  She looked older, likely on the vain side considering her somewhat impractical outfit and the fact that it looked like her face would crack if she moved it too much.  She could already tell they were going to get along swimmingly; like a bleeding fish in a shark tank.  The older woman's reaction to Naveta's own appearance sealed that impression.  She was looking at Naveta like she was a dog with three legs, like she was the most pathetic creature alive.  The feeling was mutual in the end.  She was much happier once she stopped caring about what other people thought of her, and focused on the more important things in life.  Like not dying and rocks.  Her question was reasonable though, and fortunately, it was one that answered itself before any of them could say another word.

---

When she was still in school, Naveta was always one of the weirder kids.  She had strange hobbies, didn't understand people very well, and had a tendency to miss obvious things about them.  She would also get so focused on stuff that she would just tune out the world entirely.  This gave her a more than a few odd stares and people making fun of her, but these kids seemed small time compared to what she had to deal with.  These kids were just brash and stupid, female bullies could be absolutely vicious.  Naveta just blinked slowly as she tried her best not to zone out while she waited for them to send out their pokemon.  There was no way they wouldn't after all.  Sure enough, once they seemed to get bored with insulting her, they sent out a few pokemon.  She could probably handle most of them, but the machop would likely feel what Chalk could do the most.  Chalk was one of her weakest pokemon, but she should be more than enough for this.

Without a second thought, Naveta released the flabebe who spun gracefully and finished her spin with a little flourish.  The kids laughed at the flower, and started insulting her further, with no success.  Not just because it was hard to insult her in general, but because they were really bad at it.  Chalk seemed a little offended though and started preening a bit before looking like she wanted to beat them into next week.  Since they were being so kind as to let her have the first move, she was certainly not going to say no.

"Chalk, Fairy Wind."

Naveta's strategy was simple.  Use a very cute pokemon with very cute moves to defeat their so-called tough pokemon.  If it succeeded (and she wasn't worried about it failing to begin with), it would likely be more embarrassing to them than anything else she could do.  This would make them unlikely to talk about the event at the very least.  If they needed more scaring into submission, a little bit of research and a little bit of rumor spreading would go a long way.

Chalk winked at the machop and started spinning gracefully once more.  Her spinning caused a light wind to pass through the area that glittered with little bits of sparkly dust.  It was a simple, yet pretty move and it was very effective against her enemy.  Sadly, it was a fairly weak move used by a fairly weak pokemon, so it wasn't enough to finish it off.  The machop and the kids were both surprised at the fact that she not only attacked, but also at how well the move worked.  Clearly flustered, the kid ordered his pokemon to attack back...with a karate chop of all things.  She wasn't surprised that they didn't know a whole lot about the cuter pokemon, but she was certainly willing to take advantage of it.  In the end, Chalk looked more offended that they ruffled her petals than anything else.  With one more extra sparkly fairy wind, the machop couldn't stand the humiliation (or the damage probably) anymore and fainted.  

As much as she would have liked to spare Chalk even the little bit of damage she took, this was a battle against humans.  Battling against humans had different rules.  Not the officially sanctioned type, she didn't really care about those, but the psychological type.  If she used Cirque in this fight too, or heaven forbid kicked it herself, they could have easily dismissed their loss as cheating and it wouldn't have had the same effect.  No, she needed to be entirely fair here and just smash them into the ground.  Naveta crossed her legs, rested her elbow on her knee and her head on her hand, and just stared at the bullies with a flat expression.  More than anything she just looked bored.

A quick look at her teammate's battle revealed that she was using an entirely different strategy.  Using that many special effects seemed excessive for something like this, but whatever.  The style clashed a little with her own choices, but maybe doing both would be more effective?  Or maybe she should have just brought Arkose and had him scream in their ears.  Who knows?

[Arabella Quintanilla]

A smirk pulled at Arabella’s lips as she noticed the darker haired woman’s reaction. It appeared that Arabella wasn’t alone in her feelings for Raggedy Anne over there. It really was such an unfortunate sight, but at least the first woman was a better presentation. While the woman hid under layers of clothing, Arabella thought it was cute, in an unassuming way. There was a lot of potential hidden, while—Arabella’s eyes trailed over at the smaller woman—that one was near hopeless. That’s when Arabella noticed Raggedy Anne’s look. It mirrored the ex-cop’s. How amusing.

None of them had to do anything after that, besides listen to three pocked marked preteens drabble on. Arceus, Arabella could’ve thought of better insults in her sleep than what these three were trying to come up with. “Oh? We’re women? Girls? I didn’t know that!” She replied with a haughty bark, her viridian eyes leveling with them like a proud and unfazed lioness. Kids were annoying. And had she seen the freckled woman’s pointed glare at Kid O, Arabella would have had agreed with its sentiment.

Instead the ex-cop focused on the rather unexciting pokemon battle beginning in front of her. She’s seen so many of these over the years that something as trite as this bored the woman. She’d had her own partners in the past, she owned police pokemon when she was on the force, and now she had a pokemon she picked up and another she stole during her initiation for Origin. This was, quite literally, child’s play.

For Arabella’s contribution there wasn’t that much more to do given the Spiritomb’s area attack and the Flabebe’s handling of the Machop. The ex-cop tossed a pokeball into the air, releasing her Sableye to finish off the last pokemon. Already wounded by the Spiritomb’s Ominous Wind, the opponent’s Croagunk staggered forward. “This is over. Stella use Psychic.”

Stella’s eyes glowed vividly as she struck the Croagunk down with a mental attack, delivering a coup de grace and finishing the pokemon off. That was it. Arabella laughed. “I stand corrected, this is the most pathetic thing I’ve seen all day. Is this it? Enough of a lesson for you twerps?”

The Academy students grumbled, balked, and turned on each other. There was a lot of griping, internal squabbling, and Arabella rolling her eyes as she gestured at the brats. She gave a ‘can-you-believe-this’ look at Freckles and Raggedy as if this was to be the extent of their mission. Mama O better be someone important or this wasn’t worth the effort to get dressed.

Pushing Kid O out of the way, the bullies swore they’d be back.

Arabella doubted that. Stifling a yawn, the ex-cop looked over at her companions. Seeing as they’d been with Origin longer than Arabella, they’d have a better idea what to do with Kid O and the rest of this mission.

[Bena]

Kid O walked up to you, sheepish and a little intimidated by your force. There's something he wants to tell you and he struggles to get the words out. It sounds like the bullies stole his bag, including his ID, his phone, and both of those things trace him back to his mother and Team Origin. They threw it somewhere around the graves so you better help Kid O find it. Where and when ever you find the bag it will be surrounded by these wild pokemon. Happy hunting!

Species: Arbok
Gender: Male
Ability: Shed Skin
Moves: Mud Bomb | Acid | Dragon Tail | Fire Fang | Screech | Poison Fang



Species: Lampent
Gender: Male
Ability: Infiltrator
Moves: Flame Burst | Confuse Ray | Hex | Dark Pulse | Shock Wave | Heat Wave



Species: Haunter
Gender: Male
Ability: Levitate
Moves: Shadow Punch | Dazzling Gleam | Foul Play | Destiny Bond | Sludge Bomb | Shadow Claw

[Felicity Fosse]

A small scoff left her lips as Felicity shook her head, “Oh, of course we wouldn’t actually kill them, but the threats and the mood it sets is great.” Her lips pulled down into a pouting smile at the next comment while her cheeks flushed a bit, her response almost mumbled out, “besides, what’s wrong with a good pun.” Man, people were so down on puns these days. Felicity still loved them. Any dumb joke, really. The graveyard was just such a good setup for it, she couldn’t help getting excited for it!

The way the smaller woman seemed to study her after that made the dark-haired woman shift uncomfortably, as though she was being judged. Considering she had no place to judge based off of her appearance Felicity was pretty sure it didn’t have anything to do with that, but still didn’t know what she could have said to warrant that reaction. At the response, however, Felicity nodded thoughtfully. “Scare? Hmm. If he’s as sad as he seems based on how easily he’s being bullied, than Marion and I may be able to pull that off.”

Her plotting thoughts were quickly pulled away at the smartass response her companion gave, and Felicity’s lips pursed. She didn’t care about the long empty husks that the graves marked, but the spirits that once resided in them were a different story. Sighing, she glanced around the misty graveyard and gave an exaggerated shrug. “Well, if you end up with a less-than-happy spirit following you around, don’t say I didn’t warn you…”

As she watched her teammates finish of the last of the pathetic Pokemon, she looked to the kids and laughed at the older woman’s taunt. Well, she wasn’t wrong. Moloch probably could have taken all of them out all on his own, and that pretty much spoke about how pathetic the bullies were. They seriously had to have a talk with the kid’s mom when they got back to base. Glancing to Marion and nodding towards the kid, she scowled. “Really? First you let those brats push you around, and then you manage to let them take your ‘work’ things and leave them lying around? I have half a mind to leave you here to pick your things and run home with your tail between your legs on your own, but you would probably manage to mess that up too. Wait there until we do your job for you. You’re not sneaking off without us.”

Marion had crept up behind the brat, and now hovered eerily close to him, eyes wide and grin more than a little creepy. Turning to the other two, Felicity rubbed the back of her neck and scowled. “First a pathetic fight, and now a fetch quest. Well, at least we’ll still get paid for all of this.” Moloch had ‘shrunk’ back down a little to a small blue and purple cloud around his now floating stone. Floating over to his trainer, he bobbed up and down a few times as though gleeful about his overwhelming success in that small battle.

After the bit of hunting around to try and find the bag, the first thing Felicity noticed were the Pokemon. Along with the fact they were significantly stronger than the actual trained Pokemon the kids had, which just went to validate her frustration that the kid wasn’t able to fend for himself as an Origin member. Looking again to Moloch, she smiled and backed away slowly. “Alright Moloch, let’s try that one more time. Ominous Wind.”

Seeming to cackle to himself, Moloch drifted forward towards the angry wild Pokemon. Felicity really shouldn’t blame them for being angry that their territory was being invaded by some little brats and some adults who should have had better things to do with their time. She was already frustrated with having to be here, though, so she wasn’t about to pussyfoot around the problem.

Moloch seemed to grow again, that eerie wind billowing out from the crack in his stone as it blew towards the enemy Pokemon. It hit the ghosts the hardest, the Lampent and the Haunter almost seeming completely dazed from the hit. The flame Pokemon’s fire seemed to dim almost completely, and as it stuttered a bit Felicity threw one of her custom Pokeballs. It shook a couple times before sitting still, and she nodded happily. Looking to the Haunter, though, she was surprised to see it wasn’t completely out for the count yet.

Instead, it seemed exceptionally enraged, and Felicity took the chance to laugh slightly. “Maybe it’s the spirit of the grave you sat on earlier.” Turning, she stuck her tongue out teasingly at the younger member of their team. She knew that was so unlikely she wouldn’t even dream of giving it any solid thought, but it was just too silly and coincidental for her not to take the chance to joke about it. Felicity glanced to the other Pokemon too, but refrained from attacking again yet. She got her prize, the others could earn theirs too if they wanted to take them home with them.

[Naveta Lejori]

Once again, all Naveta could do was stare.  Was this woman for real?  Okay, she could forgive being really into the atmosphere of a place; some people were just over dramatic and liked showing off.  Sure, whatever.  She could even forgive being into puns.  Naveta was just biased against them because she heard one too many cummingtonite and rock cleavage jokes from people that thought they were way funnier than they actually were.  However, superstition was not something she could take seriously.  It was one of the few things that could genuinely offend her, and it wasn't because she found stupidity generally offensive.  Believing in superstitions and myths encouraged people to accept any old explanation without thinking critically about it, or without even trying to find the truth behind it.  As a scientist and an informant, she found ignorance and having no desire to move past it to be one of the few evils in the world.

Her eyebrows went up, she tilted her head and searched for any sign that this woman might not be serious.  She had to be messing with her right?  Trying to get her to let her guard down?  It was a really convincing show though, given how she reacted to Naveta taking a seat.  It was fortunate that she had something to distract her, to at least slow down the realization that everyone she was going to be forced to work with was a complete idiot (granted, most of the population were complete idiots, so it wasn't that surprising).

---

The final member of the team opted for a more tuanty wordy strategy, a type of strategy that Naveta never really considered herself good at.  Both her teammates appeared to be more interested in theatrics, but this one combined that with a little piece of Naveta's own strategy to just humiliate them instead of scare them.  She wasn't quite sure how well their independent strategies synergized with each other, nor would she even be particularly good at judging that kind of thing, but given how the targets ran off, the shakiness in their voices, and their attempts to act really tough despite their actions, it likely worked well enough.  If it didn't, well she could probably fabricate something well enough in the future if she was paid enough to care about this anymore.

Given the kid's reaction, that amount just skyrocketed.  He kept such identifying information on him when he knew there were people after him?  Even if they weren't after him for that reason he really should have known better to keep such things out in the open.  Further, her opinion on his mother dropped dramatically.  Naveta really hoped that she wasn't anyone too important or this organization was seriously fucked.  Not only was she giving someone a job based on familial relationships (and presumably because she liked her own child) rather than actual skill, but she was contact him in such a way that he could be traced back to Origin through her?  Did these people have no idea what they were doing?  Given the kind of people she'd met so far, it was becoming more and more likely that this organization was just a steaming pile of incompetence and idiocy.  How the hell were they even a threat?  She was seriously starting to consider looking into them more because something really didn't add up here.

"Hey kid, serious question.  Do you even want to be doing what you're doing anymore?  You don't seem to have any aptitude for it, and we could probably find someone to replace you.  It looks like it's causing everyone, especially you,  more grief than anything."

Her tone was serious, and as harsh as ever even if her words were a bit softer.  When she was suddenly forced to go off the grid, she at least had all her computer experience to know what kinds of things she could have and what kinds of things she couldn't.  If she hadn't known that, she probably would have gotten a credit card and a job like a normal person and would have woken up dead or kidnapped before too long.  Most people didn't know how pervasive computers were, or what they could and couldn't do, and she couldn't fault most people for that.  However, it was clear this kid didn't have what it took to be a spy.  He was probably in too deep thanks to his mother to get out of Origin, but there had to be a better place for him that would completely screw them all over if someone looked at him funny.  She wasn't sure if her own position would be enough to move him somewhere, but it was worth a shot in light of all this.  For now, she was just going to have to suck it up and make sure to burn everything that connected him to Origin.

Sadly, the hunt for the bag was interrupted by pokemon.  As bad things to happen went, this one wasn't too bad at least.  Growing her arsenal further was never a bad thing.  It wouldn't even take that long either, given one of her teammates managed to hit them all pretty hard.  Cirque should be able to take the rest out pretty easily.  She released her from her pokeball, but rather than appearing as the zoroark she was she looked like a little pink skitty.  It was a precaution just in case Chalk couldn't handle the mission on her own.  With a single night daze, she was able to to cause it to faint, and Naveta was able to catch the haunter easily.  Naturally, her teammate had something stupid to say still, but at least she was more prepared for it now.

"Oh, is that how it works?  I should sit on graves more often if it'll attract stronger pokemon to me."

[Arabella Quintanilla]

“I like you,” Arabella purred as the freckled woman finished her litany of complaints. Freckles was laying into Kid O and the brat deserved it, especially when they found out his stuff had been stolen as well. Before Arabella could add her own two cents to the conversation, Raggedy huffed out choice words for the boy.  Arabella's perfect eyebrows rose in surprise as she looked back at Raggedy, giving her a look that, for the first time since they met, lacked pity. “That was even better.”

Ignoring her Sableye as the pokemon stared at its own hazy reflection in Arabella’s boots, Arabella rested her hands on her hips. “Everyone does grunt work, Freckles, especially in organizations like this. Heh, even proper careers have their shit days. We just do what we need to do for this make this,” she gestured to the shaking Kid O, “one’s mother happy, and see if the next mission we get is better than wiping noses.” Arabella ended her talk by shoving Stella away now that the Stableye had wrapped her arms around her trainer’s leg.

Of course the ex-cop felt the same way about this lackluster evening. The chores were getting beneath her and if it wasn’t for the promise of Mama O then Arabella would’ve quit right then and there. No point in wasting her energy on something so menial. But having just joined Origin and not exactly resting on any kind of title, Arabella knew she wasn’t in a position to rack up bad points just yet. She needed to get some tasks under her belt or get under someone’s belt in order to relax back into the same routine she had as an officer.

Arabella spent more time thinking about Mama O then the kid they were helping. She didn’t feel bad for him, he was, as Raggedy said, poorly suited for this life, and when Arabella glazed over his terrified eyes she saw opportunity instead of a soul in need of assistance.

Finding Kid O’s shit was trickier than Arabella originally thought it was going to be. Whether it was their battle that stirred up these wild pokemon or, Arabella threw a strange look at the other women, something about sitting on graves that disturbed them, either way they had to fight again. With her companions taking out two of the three wild pokemon, Arabella found herself eyeing down a gorgeous Arbok.

The Arbok was close to twelve feet and as poisonous and deadly as the Beedrills Arabella so loved. “Stella use Psychic again,” the woman commanded, crossing her arms as the super effective move damaged the Arbok. But he wasn’t out of the count just yet. Hissing at them, the Arbok charged over his fangs coated in flames. Stella squirmed and whimpered under the bite, pushing at the Arbok’s jaws as she looked over at Arabella.

“Use Psychic again,” Arabella told it, her eyes never leaving the Arbok. It was clear she had seen something beautiful and coveted it more than the pokemon she already owned. The gems on Stella’s body glowed as she attacked again, allowing Arabella to capture the Arbok. “Very nice,” the ex-cop murmured, tossing the pokeball into the air to catch it again. “Almost worth cleaning up your mess, kid.”

Hearing the tail end of Raggedy's smart-aleck remark, Arabella grinned. Appearance Raggedy lacked, but her wit made up for her dull looks.

[Bena]

After clearing out the wild pokemon, Kid O and his bag are reunited once again. Yet, there's still something weird with this kid. If you look at him he appears worried and upon even closer inspection you see him looking off to where the bullies ran to. The options now are limitless. Do you want to investigate Kid O more? Do you trust the mission is done and want to return back to base? What about the bullies-- does that nag at your brain? 

Is there something off? Talk it over with your companions and figure out what your next steps will be.

[Felicity Fosse]

Under the scrutinizing glance of the smaller woman, Felicity shifted uncomfortably. Despite her pretty awful appearance, she definitely seemed to have wit that was hidden by the lackluster ensemble. She was set in her thinking, but still didn’t like the way some people thought about it, or thought about her because of it. Her lips pursed into a thin line as her eyebrows sunk together, arms still crossed tightly across her chest as she looked away. Marion floated by her, seeming to snuggle up by her shoulder to draw her attention away from her anxiety. Despite the reason the Shuppet originally found her trainer and stuck by her side, the Pokemon cared for Felicity and didn’t like it when she acted like this.

Still, once the other member brandished her comments towards both of them, the skin underneath all of her freckles rogued as her eyebrows relaxed slightly. She wasn’t expecting that, that’s for sure. She blinked at the nickname, frowning a bit. “It’s… Felicity. Not Freckles. True enough, although it doesn’t mean I’m not going to complain about it, especially when they put inept people to work and expect us to clean up after it.”

After the fight was all done and over with, Felicity expected to finally be able to head back to headquarters, call it a day, and get good stiff drink back at home. One look at the kid’s face told her that would have to wait, though, and she groaned. Keeping the bag tight in her hand she scowled at him, looking to where the bullies ran off to. Since Marion had floated back over to comfort her trainer, Moloch took her place, ominously floating behind him and keeping a swirled eye on him. “Alright kid, spit it out. What aren’t you telling us? ...Don’t tell me the kids actually know or something pathetic like that. If it turns out you’re in even more deep than we thought, so help me, Moloch will make your life very difficult.”

[Naveta Lejori]

Naveta's expression flattened further when the kid outright ignored her question.  Here she was trying to help, even if it was as much the organization as much as him, and he didn't even have the decency to acknowledge it.  This is why she rarely did anything for anyone.  At this point though, it was arguably part of her job and it just didn't sit right with her to leave an obvious problem hanging like this.  She rubbed her nose and sighed.  

"That wasn't a rhetorical question.  If you're basically stuck doing this against your will because of an overbearing cunt, I might be able to do something about it.  Otherwise...uh, you're going to need some serious training in discretion.  Immediately."

She figured she could just contact his handler later and prayed that it wasn't his mother.  That would just be embarrassing, and would likely make things more difficult than it needed to be given the situation so far.  Though really, even if he did want to stay a spy she would still go back to headquarters and recommend against it.  Being a spy wasn't easy and he just wasn't cut out for it, especially if he was this affected by bullies.  While her own line of work was a step above spy, it was close enough really.  In the end, the only reason she was in this organization was because of that.  There were enough people that wanted her head that being somewhere relatively safe was actually welcome, even if she had to do annoying things to keep them happy.

In the mean time, she had to do something to fix the actual issue here.  The bullies weren't the problem, they were never the problem.  Naveta walked towards him and nonchalantly grabbed his bag away from him once more.  Given his prowess so far, she doubted he'd be able to stop her.  Seriously, she's moved boulders bigger than this kid.  Once she had it, she immediately started digging through it.  The first thing she pulled out was his ID card, holding it in such a way that it was difficult for anyone but the kid to tell what it was.  It was clearly something she had done often, and she wasn't really thinking about it.  In fact, she wasn't even looking up, and was continuing to dig through the bag with her other hand.

"This?  Don't carry this with you unless you need it.  It's worth a trip back home to make sure no one finds it.  Keep it in a drawer with a false bottom, or at least in a secret pocket.  I don't even know why the fuck we have these, it's really stupid."

She shoved the ID card into his chest in order to indicate that he should take it immediately and that it didn't belong in a loose bag at all.  Then she pulled out his phone and started going through his contacts, mostly looking to see if she could at least get his mother's name.  

"And this?" she motioned to the phone without looking up.  "It shouldn't be used.  Ever.  Use it to call your friends, not your business."

Once she was done going through his phone, she cleared out anything that looked incriminating and put it back in his bag.  She wasn't done going through the rest of his stuff though.  If there was anything else in there that was particularly incriminating it needed to be dealt with, and he needed to be properly chastised for being so bad at this.  She noted her teammate's question, as well as her name.  It was certainly a valid concern, though she didn't get that impression personally.  She figured they'd mention something about a secret while they were trying to taunt them, or about spreading something after they lost.  They seemed like the type of people where if they had any amount of dirt or anything they could use to threaten someone with that they would.  Of course, it wouldn't be the first time she was wrong about people if she was wrong here, so she was still interested in his answer.

[Arabella Quintanilla]

Arabella’s pokemon never treated her like that, she mused, watching as Freckle’s Shuppet nuzzled its way into the other woman’s personal space. Not that Arabella would ever want her pokemon to do that. Pokemon had never been pets or friends for Arabella. Now that didn’t mean she saw them as only tools, though they were most certainly tools, but rather pokemon were business partners for Arabella. They had a purpose to serve and often that purpose was to help Arabella in whatever she was going. Most of the time these pokemon came and went, but there were a few Arabella had been particularly fond of when she served as an officer. She almost regretted that they were stripped from her. Almost.

“Felicity,” Arabella repeated, sweetening the name as she played with it on her tongue. Faint as it was, observant listeners could make out a hint of an accent in the woman’s voice as she spoke. It wasn’t heavy, hardly noticeable all the other times she spoke earlier, but when it came to saying this, saying a name, something personable, the inflection was there. “How was I supposed to know that when no one introduces themselves?” The ex-cop shrugged, painted lips smiling playfully.

Yet, formalities aside (was Arabella really that old that this younger group didn’t even give their names now?), the woman realized they weren’t going to have time to sit back and gossip. She gave an exaggerated sigh as her company began to interrogate the kid. The sigh wasn’t directed towards Felicity or Raggedy, but rather at Kid O and the situation itself. The women were on the right track here, something was definitely off about the whole event if not the whole mission.

The purple haired woman watched with a lazy look as Raggedy dug through the kid’s bags and Felicity threatened. Again, what else was there for Arabella to do besides sit back and look pretty? Why pull weight when there was someone else already doing the heavy lifting. Personally, Arabella was impressed with Raggedy’s advice. Wasn’t half bad for someone who looked like they rolled in mud for a living. There was one thing, however, that Arabella wanted to chime in with. Walking over to Raggedy and Kid O, Arabella leaned down and snatched one of the Kid’s pokeballs from his belt.

Toying with it, she tilted her head and looked directly at the boy. “And use these, Arceus, the good people of that stupid Academy have given you the tools to defend yourself. Use them. Or, if you don’t want to draw attention to yourself, befriend people and have those people protect you. Make connections, play the game. Not all secrecy has to be undercover, kid, sometimes the best way is to be right up front and involved.”

She laughed, throwing the pokeball back to its owner. “Just be sure you don’t fuck up your own cover.”