The Diamond Ladies
Safe House
Affected RPers: @Desolate Divine @Chakramaster @Noblejanobii

At first, Cassandra and Violet thought the plan might have been sunk and a done deal with what Alyssa said, but it seemed Jirachi was quite persistent, and Jimmy’s idea had definitely seized his interest. Despite the mythical Pokémon’s optimism and playful eagerness and Jarena’s energetic passion to join in on it, Cassandra and Violet could only shrug it off and opt out due to what they felt were bigger priorities. And Cassandra thought the Champions wouldn’t give it the green light either due to what they did just yesterday.

Then, when they weren’t expecting it, Jimmy had requested Jirachi to teleport them, along with Steven and Cynthia, to the safest and most concealed place on the entire ship, where they couldn’t possibly be heard or seen by anyone, especially “Karma”.

“Okay,” Jirachi cheered. “Everyone in this room will come with us. In 3....2....1! Aaaand we're goooooooone!”

Before Cassandra and Violet could even object or say anything in response, suddenly there was a moment of disorientation…



Safe House LZ

After awakening, they found themselves back where they started this morning, in the LZ Safe House where they had spent last night. Except this time, Jimmy, Jirachi, Sami, Alyssa, Avery, Steven, and Cynthia were there as well. It was actually a bit of a tight fit, but it was the most secure room.

“Whoa, wait, how did we…” Jarena asked, looking around. “Hey, isn’t this our room from last night?”

“Safest location on the ship…” Cassandra recalled, remembering Jimmy’s request.

Still, for Cassandra, it made sense. This Safe House LZ room was reinforced with security plating and built to withstand blast damage while there were no video cameras or microphones either. It was made for VIPs and that kind of surveillance was only provided at the VIP’s discretion. Since it was not being used before they were escorted here, it was never activated.

“Uhh... good morning," Avery greeted the others, still eating a breackfast that they hadn’t finished yet. "Was there a meeting of the minds going on that I wasn't informed of?

“Where exactly…?” Steven asked, looking around and realizing he was besides Cynthia now, who also looked skeptical about the situation. “What’s going on here?”

“Oh, hey everyone!” Jarena greeted them with a smile. “Glad you’re here! See, Jimmy came up with a brilliant plan. But we had to discuss it in secret.”

She then went over the details, explaining the plan to find “Karma” and how it would involve Jimmy and the Diamond Ladies to become Pokémon as the distraction while Rotom would try to track “Karma” through the radio while Alyssa would disguise herself as Cassandra.

“I take it this ‘Karma’ was involved in the press leak?” Cynthia asked, not at all sure about this plan.

“Yeah, they’re one of Lance’s goons!” Jarena exclaimed. “Lance has a bunch of goons, actually, still trying to do his dirty work. It’s pretty bad, they’ve got surveillance on the entire ship! Probably would be a great idea to stop them before things get rough!”

“There’s… a concern Lance’s attempt to murder us and frame Jon may get another similar attempt before the ship docks tonight,” Cassandra explained to Steven and Cynthia. “I mean, I understand it would be a good idea to do something, but I just don’t think this is the right plan…”

“Of course it’s the right plan!” Jarena nudged Cassandra, teasing her. “Lance and his goons betrayed the League! And we need to help the League get to the bottom of this! We gotta prove we’re not the bad guys! But we need to trick ‘Karma’ and Lance’s other goons, and we can do that by having someone else pretend they’re us while we catch them off guard as Pokémon!”

“Look, Jarena,” Violet tried to be honest with her. “This is all…

Violet could see Jarena was truly trying her hardest to make this plan happen, which she honestly believe was due to her wanting to get some action as a cute Pokémon, but instead she just sighed and was suddenly interrupted by a phone call and had to step away.

“Given the situation, I think you’re right that it would be best if you three would stay off camera and out of public scrutiny,” Cynthia agreed in part. “But given what happened yesterday with you three… let’s just say it’s still very fresh in our memory.”

“Come on, please, give us a chance to help!” Jarena pleaded. “We can’t help if we just keep hunkering down like this. Lance tried to commit murder! His toadies may try it now! And if they don’t try to murder us, they may go after you, too!”

The possibility of that threat did make Cynthia and Steven do a double take for a moment. They had seen Lance do something unspeakable they never thought he would do. But with Jarena mentioning that they might be a potential target now, suddenly, it seemed quite plausible given Lance’s sudden barbaric actions and his reaction to how they went against him and sided with Jon.

There was now a bigger concern…

While Jarena had been trying to make her case, Violet had gotten a phone call. She recognized the number and voice as being Hank Benton, her attorney. But it seemed strange that he would be calling her at this time, and at first it was making her wonder if something dire had happened and now she needed legal council.

“Hello, Mrs. Radcliffe, just wanted to confirm everything went smoothly with your financial advisor Rebecca Jager,” Hank told her. “Your balance transfer request for sixty million to the Pokémon League has been completed and the transfer was successful.”

“Wait… was this…?” Violet asked before suddenly Jirachi approached her.

“That’s right, I took care of all the pesky legal paperwork for you!” Jirachi smiled to Violet. “The debt is goooone, now you’re all free to help Jimmy with his plan!! Ha, ha, isn’t it great!?”

Wonderful…

“Uh… thanks… I guess,” Violet replied, really a bit taken back that Jirachi had actually completed government legal forms with her signature and she wasn’t even aware of it.

“Always happy to help a friend!” Jirachi smiled, striking a happy and whimsical pose.

Meanwhile, Jarena knew she had to convince Steven and Cynthia to let her do this, even though Cassandra and Violet were still on the skeptical side of the situation. She just had to find the right words. She wished she could find the right words…

“Look, if we don’t try to stop them, who will?” Jarena asked Steven and Cynthia. “Lance and his goons are trying to destroy lives, our lives, and you two might be next! And I imagine Jon as well! Time is running out, and we need to act fast! So if no one has a better plan, we need to go with this one right now. I know what we did yesterday was bad, but we’re trying to help now. You would appreciate us helping you, right? Let us help you to make up for that and nail this while there’s still a chance!”

Steven and Cynthia looked to each other, not quite sure how to balance the pros and cons of letting Jimmy and the Diamond Ladies do this kind of undercover operation, but as Jarena said, some plan of action was better than no plan. At the current moment, Steven and Cynthia didn’t have too many other ideas, never expecting Lance’s betrayal or seeing his followers now operating under his dark command and not their own. But if they decided to do nothing assuming Lance’s followers were not going to carry his dark plans, their misjudgment could cost lives, including their own, if they had a contingency backup plan ready to go in the event Lance was incapacitated.

Cynthia felt it just wasn’t worth risking not doing anything about it and being fatally wrong later, even if the plan was unusual and involved unorthodox mission parameters.

“For lack of having any other ideas right now but understanding there is urgency to this, I’ll allow it,” Cynthia replied to Jarena. “Jimmy Kendo and Sami Culver are to be your escort at all times, so remain with them. I’ll feel better about this as long as you three aren’t going off on your own unless they deem it’s truly necessary. As for you, Jimmy, you decide who else you need for this mission and what you want them to do. I’m leaving it in your hands.”

“If you’re really going to do this…” Steven stated, still feeling like becoming Pokémon for a mission like this was a bit oddball, “…I’m going to need you to find some kind of ledger or record that has all the names of the operatives that Lance hired and well as their network and clearance codes. Because the situation’s been compromised and we now have Lance’s operatives working against our own operatives and against our directives, I’m going to need to revoke their access rights and take their communication offline until we can screen each one of them and confirm they weren’t involved or detain them if we can confirm they were. We’re going to have to investigate all of them in a post mission debrief to see who was involved as an accessory to Lance’s actions. But for now, if you think this is the best way to stay under the radar and get us that information and anything else that you believe is mission critical. This isn’t the way I would ever do things, but… let’s just hope it works.”

“Oh, it will,” Jarena smiled. “We’ll also try to see who they’ve been leaking information to, and if there’s possibly another attack in the works that you and Cynthia aren’t aware about! We’re not going to let them continue the nasty plans that Lance started!”

“Well… good luck,” Steven replied to her, still not entirely sure if this was the right thing to do, but still hoping it wouldn’t turn out to be a mistake.

Meanwhile, Cassandra and Violet looked at each other, quite surprised Jarena actually pulled it off and managed to convince them to go ahead with the plan. Though they had a feeling the lack of anyone having any other ideas was a major part. That and they couldn’t help but take a suspicious look at Jirachi, thinking he may have influenced the decision. But there was no true way of telling…

“Looks like I’m officially assigned to this escapade,” Sami muttered, rolling her eyes. “Boy, I think this is the strangest cruise anyone has ever been on.”

“Hey, better than a boring cruise!” Jarena laughed. “But come on, this is important! Lives could be at stake! Maybe the whole League is in jeopardy now…”

Violet just sighed, taking a glance at Jarena and then at Jirachi, who both looked to be really enjoying all this. She had to admit, Jimmy and the both of them saw an opportunity and went to town with it. She actually had to admire how resourceful they were at weaving the whole rationale behind it, basically scrounging up any possible scrap of reasoning they could.

“Guess we’re really doing this again…” Violet shrugged, still surprised she was drawing a blank on alternative viable options when usually she was able to piece together at least something.

“I can almost feel the fur again already,” Cassandra nodded at Violet’s comment, wincing but almost laughing at the absurdity of it all.

“Ooh, that’s good, I’ll take that as a sign you’re all set to go!” Jarena smiled before looking to Jirachi. “Hey, any time you’re ready, Jirachi!”

“Pretty sure two runs at being a cute, mousey chinchilla Pokémon weren’t in my contract, but, well, here we are…” Sami muttered cynically, seeing as how she had been given official instruction to be an escort in these unusual circumstances. “Beginning to wonder why I even brought cosmetics along.”

Now, it was all down to Jimmy and Jirachi to decide exactly how they wanted to get this set up and who to bring along…