{RP} The S.S. Wishmaker - Tides of Witchcraft

[Neo Emolga]

The Diamond Ladies
Battle Stadium Spectator Booth
Affected RPers: @Desolate Divine @Chakramaster

After Cassandra got her team healed up at the Pokémon Center kiosk station by the arena stadium, she was then escorted by three operatives to the spectator booth where Jarena and Violet had been watching the battle unfold on a monitor.

“You go, girl!” Jarena cheered upon Cassandra’s arrival. “Holy crapola, that was a crazy battle!”

“Yeah, really,” Cassandra replied with a relieved sigh. “Avery’s team is tough as nails! Wasn’t expecting a wake-up call like that.”

Cassandra was a bit surprised to see Cynthia and Steven were in the spectator booth as well, but then shortly after, something on the wall caught Cassandra’s eye.

“Is that… blood?” Cassandra asked, a little shocked.

“Lance’s blood,” Violet informed her.

“Lance?” Cassandra asked, in shock that she might have heard that incorrectly. “As in former Champion Lance!?”

“There was an incident…” Cynthia informed her. “Lance had attempted to attack Jarena and Violet while they were watching your battle with Avery. Jon had… well, dealt with Lance the way Jon does things.”

Cassandra couldn’t believe her ears. Was it not enough that the three of them had come clean and were doing everything they could to cooperate now? How could that not be enough for Lance and what more did he want?

“Where the hell is he now?” Cassandra asked, wondering who else might be in on this plot.

“They had to use a stretcher to take him to the infirmary,” Violet replied, crossing her arms. “I doubt he’ll be leaving his bed before the ship docks tomorrow, but before he attacked us, he requested the video surveillance be changed out. He’s not working alone, Cass.”

Cassandra couldn’t help but look over her shoulder in caution. She really didn’t like the idea of having to constantly watch her back, now, but it was the issue they were dealing with.

“Look, let’s just grab a bite to eat and not think too much on it right now,” Cassandra suggested. “I figured we could celebrate with a cake and-“

“It’s better if you save that for another time,” Steven told her, looking uncertain if doing that was worth the possible risk. “We’re still not sure what the full situation is like and who else might have been connected to Lance and this incident, but it’s better you three stay here for your own safety. Once Jon’s battle is done, we’ll take you to one of the lesser known safehouses. Your personal belongings from your guest room have been gathered and relocated there.”

Cassandra wasn’t too happy about having to postpone the victory celebration, and Victini looked like he had just lost a $20 bill down a storm drain.

“I’ll make it up to you, buddy, don’t worry,” Cassandra told him with a smile, rubbing his forehead to console him.

With not much other choice, they had decided to watch Jon’s battle play out, trying not to think too much about the restraints that were on them at the moment. After turning back to the monitor, Cassandra figured it would just be one more day of this and the ship would dock tomorrow night after the Grand Final battle. Although she was hoping tomorrow would not be nearly as chaotic as today was…

Throughout the whole match Cassandra was quite impressed with the way Jon battled, utilizing a very strategic approach of employing Baton Pass between his Blaziken and his Jolteon, taking out a Feraligatr, a Skarmory, and a Golem without having any of his Pokémon downed, though by the time it was all over, his Blaziken looked exhausted. They never even found out what Jon’s third Pokémon was.

Damn, I’m not even sure if we would be able to stand up to that…

“Dang, Jon can fight kind of dirty,” Jarena remarked at the way he destroyed the lights. “Almost got sacked by the referee for doing that!”

“I have a feeling there was a reason for that…” Cassandra replied, getting a suspicion he was building it up to something else…

---

The Diamond Ladies
Safe House LZ

After the battle, Steven and Cynthia had taken the Ladies to one of the lesser-known safe house rooms on the cruise ship, intended for VIPs like government officials and diplomats that needed to have some security provided while they were on board. To keep things under tight scrutiny, only Cynthia, Steven, and a few select operatives knew about where they were located.

The room itself was spacious and secure and the amenities, furniture, and décor were clean and fanciful, though the room was also built to provide protection against explosive charges, gunfire, and Pokémon attacks. Since no high-profile officials were using the room for this cruise, it was open for this use.

“Gee whiz, certainly beats our last room!” Jarena smiled as she looked at everything in the room including the dresser drawers and the ornate lamp fixtures.

While Cynthia and Steven had left to go tend to other matters, the Ladies were free to spend the evening however they pleased… though they had to stay within this room until tomorrow.

“Never knew they had a room like this here,” Violet marked, looking around.

“Probably a good reason for that,” Cassandra replied. “Well, we should be safe here until tomorrow. Not sure if they’ll let us go anywhere save for the stadium for the final round.”

“Yeah but… what about after that…?” Jarena asked, looking a little unhappy. “Cass, Lance and his four goons tried to freakin’ kill us while you were busy with the battle. I mean heck, if it hadn’t been for Jon, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Sorry you had to deal with that…” Cassandra muttered, knowing Jarena and Violet didn’t even have their Pokémon with them. “I never really liked Lance but I never thought he’d be a murdering freak like that.”

And it made sense why they had to be put into this room. They already knew they had someone working video surveillance willing to perform the coverup for Lance, and chances were very good there were others involved in the plot. While Lance was out of the picture, it didn’t mean they were safe.

“Lance came after us first demanding the sixty million he thinks we owe him,” Violet explained. “Then he just told us he wanted to destroy Shadowcraft and that included us, so he attacked. Barely even makes sense, but I guess he realized he wasn’t getting the money right away.”

“I told him, I didn’t care about battling, titles, money, or whatever,” Jarena informed her. “And yeah, I wished we could just go back to being Pokémon so creeps like them would never bother us ever again. I didn’t know Jirachi was on board and would take that literally.”

“So that’s what happened…” Cassandra replied, realizing her memory of being an Eevee during the battle wasn’t a hallucination after all.

As much as Cassandra would have liked to see Jarena and Violet with their own Pokémon for their own personal protection, the League wasn’t quite ready to hand them over quite yet.

“We’re together now, at least,” Violet told them both. “Less of a chance someone like Lance is going to show up here to try that again.”

“Yeah, but are we always going to be hunted like this?” Jarena asked, looking anxious. “By freakin’ Lance for crying out loud? That creep is considered a hero to most people! And I’m sure he’s got friends all over the place.”

Cassandra was still surprised Lance was willing to go that far. And what Jarena said was concerning.

“I see you met Jirachi, too,” Cassandra told her. “Still thinking about running off as Pokémon once we’re off this ship?”

“Well, yeah, I thought that was the whole plan,” Jarena smiled with a casual shrug. “You as Eevee, Violet as Furret, and me as Buneary, right? You know, Victini’s ‘turning over a new leaf’ thing?”

“That’s the backup plan, Jarena,” Violet reminded her. “We probably don’t need that anymore. Cass just proved we can still win without witchcraft and we still have our standing among the fans and spectators thanks to that. If everything goes according to Jon’s plan, we should be fine even after serving out the ban.”

“Did… Jirachi grant your wish, too, Violet?” Jarena asked her.

Violet had a moment of silence before she decided to take out her phone and check her investment and brokerage accounts. And then she started flipping through the investment portfolio.

“Oh… my… god…” Violet nearly gasped at the numbers.

“What did she wish for?” Cassandra asked very curiously, knowing Violet almost never reacted like that.

“She said she ‘wished she had the money’ when Lance demanded the sixty million,” Jarena informed her. “My guess is… someone here had a really nice day financial fun land.”

“Look at this!” Violet exclaimed, showing Jarena and Cassandra her portfolio value total on her phone. “This pays off everything!”

Cassandra was very much surprised and quite happy the massive debt that the League would impose on them would no longer be a problem.

“Keep that… quiet, though,” Cassandra told Violet, almost laughing. “Just pay the League and no one needs to know where exactly that came from!”

But in the meantime, Jarena was silent, fidgeting a bit. She was glad Violet would be able to pay the debt easily now and Cassandra had won her battle. It seemed like everyone was getting exactly what they wanted… but not her.

“Yeah…” Jarena sighed, looking a bit glum.

Cassandra couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t celebrating like she and Violet were. She thought this was a major win.

“Jarena, really, this is huge!” she beamed a happy smile. “The only thing we’d have to worry about now is just some silly five year competition ban. That’s going to be so easy to hide. I mean heck, if the sponsors pull their contracts, it’s not even a big deal now!”

“I’ll pay them,” Violet told her, wondering if that’s what Jarena was upset about. “It’s fine, we don’t have to split the debt. I wasn’t even expecting Jirachi to actually grant it. We won’t have to sell anything.”

“It’s… not that…” Jarena replied, trying to smile a bit. “Ah, you know, maybe I was just being naïve and wishful, you know? The whole venturing off as Pokémon, going on adventures as stuff. It just seemed… nice.”

Violet wasn’t surprised at Jarena’s response, though now Cassandra was seeing for herself how much it meant to her. She had realized she had a close bond to cute and cuddly Pokémon, but this was a whole other level. It meant giving up everything about their futures, just when things were starting to look up and appear to be more optimistic.

“Jarena, you do realize how much we’d have to give up to do that, right?” Cassandra asked her, feeling like she really needed to think this over. “It’s like… everything, just when we’ve started pulling ourselves out of the hole. I was… really emotionally wrecked before when I came up with that idea, but things are actually going okay now. After the five-year vacation, you know, we could get back into battling and stuff again.”

“Yeah, I know…” Jarena sighed, still looking down. “I just… really liked it. I’m glad things are going well for you. You two are like my ultimate friends, and I just thought it would be fun. More fun than, well… having to worry someone’s going to try and hurt us. People like… Lance. Or that guy who spat on you before. Or whoever else may hate us and is trying to work out how to do what Lance couldn’t.”

And then there was a moment of silence. Cassandra and Violet had taken a glance at each other and Cassandra had an idea.

“Once we announce we’re taking some extended time off, we’ll get three nuggets and keep some water and some hair samples and stash them in a safe place,” Cassandra proposed to Jarena. “And then we turn ourselves into Pokémon and we’ll try it for about a month so you and the two of us can get a really good taste of what it’s like being Pokémon, traveling around, foraging for food, and what we’d actually be dealing with if this is something you seriously want to consider. And then at the end of it, we choose how we want our futures to go and what kind of life we think would be the happiest. That fair with everyone?”

“I like it, I think it’s a good idea,” Jarena seemed to smile a bit more.

“I guess,” Violet shrugged, seeing as how Cassandra was aiming for a happy medium with this proposal. “Curious to see what this would be like. Definitely different from some camping trip or weekend retreat.”

In truth, Cassandra didn’t want to lose either Jarena or Violet as friends. They had been through a lot together, especially today. She figured this would be a safe way to make sure they had a better idea of what they were getting into. There was a chance Jarena might realize it wasn’t what she thought it was. And it was also possible Cassandra and Violet might find themselves really enjoying the experience and deciding maybe it was worth forgoing civilization and enjoying simpler lives and pleasures. Cassandra figured it would be similar to her battling situation. It was worth a try to see what might happen, but it also at least helped Jarena feel she wasn’t being ignored or forgotten about. Cassandra knew… she did wish for this after all…