The Diamond Ladies
Main Pool

As she tried to relax on a poolside recliner with a large pair of sunglasses over her eyes, Casandra wasn’t thrilled about what had happened last night. In essence, the situation had sort of resolved itself without any serious suspicion arising, but there was still some concern over what happened last night and what it might mean for the remaining days ahead.

While she was relaxing in her red bikini and with romance book and a glass of orange juice by her side, her Victini was playing with a small red beach ball, tossing it into the air and bouncing it off of the wall.

“Hey Cas!” Jarena called out to her from the pool. “Come on in! We have the whole pool to ourselves!”

After sitting up, she pulled down her sunglasses and looked to Jarena, getting a better look. Violet was with her, working on her freestyle stroke while Jarena was playing catch with her Whimsicott, who looked anxious about having to keep atop her float tube or plunge into the water. And as every Whimsicott knew, falling into water would mean hours of discomfort waiting to dry off.

“Have fun, I’ll keep watch on our stuff,” Cassandra replied, putting her sunglasses back on.

While she had already numerous precautions in place, she still wanted to keep on top of the situation and not take any unnecessary risks. The fact someone had gone into their room and delved deep enough to encounter a contact-based transformation hex was too close for comfort. In most situations, after something like that, the three girls would hightail it out of there and leave no trace evidence behind that would tie them back to the crime. Here, however, they were still stuck on the ship until it docked, and that wouldn’t happen for another two days.

Even since the incident, Cassandra wanted to keep all the important belongings with her at all time. It meant having to carry an extra pool bag and use a few towels to cover up her Shadowcraft books and reagents that might look suspicious to anyone that would come across them. Of course, there was an enchantment on them that only the three ladies knew about. Anyone else that touched them would soon find themselves transformed into a Pokémon, which would stop them from meddling with their things and from telling others about it.

However, soon enough she saw out of the corner of her eye that Jarena was standing over her, dripping wet in her pastel-green bikini as she had just emerged from the pool.

“Come on, Cas,” Jarena casually pleaded in jest, almost laughing, “are you going to start having fun today or did you just somehow sleepwalk your way here and are still asleep from last night?”

“Something stinks,” Cassandra replied, taking off her sunglasses entirely. “Jarena, they had no business entering our room at that hour while we were at dinner. Housekeeping had already made the room, so what were they doing poking at our stuff?”

“Don’t know, don’t care,” Jarena casually smiled. “Ha, I dare them to try it again!”

But Cassandra frowned at that. If she was going to make this work, they needed to be subtle and not raise suspicion.

“Jarena, usually when someone gets hit with a Transformation Sigil like that, we scram quickly and quietly,” she replied, keeping her voice low. “Being trapped on this tub makes that pretty hard, and we still don’t know who was in there last night, what Pokémon they are now, and where they ran off to. We’re many miles from land and we don’t have any water Pokémon. Meanwhile, Violet’s Galarian Moltres would really only be able to fly her out of here. There’s no way she can carry the three of us.”

“Re-laaaax,” Jarena smiled, almost laughing. “Please, we’ve been in worse situations than this and we’re not going to need to do anything like that. People let stray Pokémon roam around resorts, hotels, and stuff like that all the time, no one’s going to suspect anything. If it gets you to have fun again, we’ll put the stuff in a better hiding spot next time so you don’t need to lug it around everywhere.”

“Fine,” Cassandra sighed. “You’re probably right, but I still want to make sure they don’t come that close again while we’re on this ship, because if that happens again and again, they’ll know something’s up. But on that note, would you and Violet be ready for tonight?”

“You bet!” Jarena exclaimed with a wink. “Violent and I are thinking of going with the ‘screw loose’ strategy tonight. I figured you’d enjoy that one.”

“Good,” Cassandra replied with a reassured smile, reclining back again. “Yeah, that’s one of my favorites.”

“Hey, that’s the power of teamwork, right?” Jarena smirked.