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

[Neo Emolga]

(OOC: Last post before the epilogue!)

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

It hadn’t taken long for Cassandra, Jarena, and Violet to head down to the LZ Safe House and pack up all of their belongings. Considering their stay there had only been for one night, they hadn’t unpacked very much at all save for a few articles of clothes and their bathroom essentials. The whole time, Sami and Kyle had kept a watch on them, realizing any moment now, Lance’s goons or any of his hired lackeys might try to strike if they had been stalking them.

Thankfully, no such thing happened, and after the three Ladies had packed, they headed to the exit and joined the crowds waiting to disembark and start making their way home. It was then that Cassandra had gotten a text. She had half-expected it to be one last taunt from “Karma,” but thankfully it was Alyssa instead.

"Hey Cassandra, this is Alyssa Drake.

Great job with the match tonight. Screw what everyone else is saying. Walk with your head held high.

I know it's probably not much, particularly this late, but I was wondering if I could interview you. If nothing else but for you to be able to step down from all this on your terms. Be able to have the last word, and have one last nice moment before everything changes?

Don't feel obligated, but if you're interested, Jon and I's flight home doesn't leave until 1am, so we will be at Diesel Bar in Castelia City until 11pm. I'd love to share a drink and hear your story before we all part ways.

Hoping to see you again.
Alyssa."

With a bit more of an optimistic smile, Cassandra typed up a quick response while they were waiting on line to disembark the ship.

“Hi Alyssa,

Sure, we’ll be right there. See you in a few.

~Cass

While it took some time to get off the ship due to a heavy queue from most of the guests all trying to leave at once, eventually the three Ladies stepped off the S.S. Wishmaker and the night sky and moon-lit seaport had opened up before them. After they stepped off the ramp, they arrived on the docks among the river of people and occasional Pokémon heading toward the city.

Just as soon as they stepped off the ramp on got on the pier, suddenly they saw Jimmy and his Pikachu. Considering all the people around, Cassandra was surprised Jimmy managed to find them among the river of people head down the dock.

“So, you’re about to be let go,” Jimmy told them. “You're about to be let go. Free as some birds as some may say. How do you ladies feel? Of course I joke. It's been...one heck of a crazy cruise.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Cassandra sighed, shaking her head with a smile. “Pretty crazy stuff I wasn’t expecting in a million years, that’s for sure.”

“So, have any plans?” Jimmy asked. “I'm sure it won't be anything too crazy since the League will have that ban on you all, but I'm sure that this isn't the end for the famed 'Diamond Ladies.'”

“Yeah, it probably won’t be pretty for a while,” Cassandra replied, figuring it might be a while before they could shake off the bad publicity. “We’ll hang in there, though. Maybe we’ll find a way to return to the spotlight in a new and better way.”

"Believe me, I have a lot planned too,” Jimmy agreed. “Maybe much more once I train a certain new Pokémon up more. Much like I've been offered help from others here. I can with you three as well."

After he had pulled out his contact card and offered it to the Ladies, Cassandra took it and looked it over, checking out both sides.

“Here, in case you ever need help,” Jimmy told them. “It's got every contact information you could ever need from me.”

“Sure, thanks, Jimmy,” Cassandra smiled.

“You don’t need that!” Jirachi laughed. “Hehehe, just call out to me! I'll help get Jimmy and myself and my friends anywhere if you need me. You have all been such lovely friends! Thank you again.”

“Hey, anytime, Jirachi,” Cassandra giggled. “You take care now!”

“As he said,” Jimmy closed his eyes with a smile. “It's been an absolutely pleasure getting to meet you there. Maybe we will meet again someday.”

“We’ll see,” Cassandra told him with a smile. “I guess this is goodbye for now, but take care and hopefully we’ll see each other again, soon!”

To Cassandra, it was hard to imagine and think about how things started with Jimmy and how they ended, but in all, she was glad she had the chance to meet him and see for herself all the incredible things Jirachi was capable of…

All of a sudden, Jarena had felt a nudging at her ankles. When she looked down in surprise, she saw a Shaymin there, trying to get her attention.

“Shay! Shaymin! Min! Shaymin! (”Hey! Jarena isn’t it? Down here! The Shaymin at your feet!”) Glimmer nudged at her ankles. “Shay, shaymin? Shaymin shay shay shaymin” (You can understand PokEmon too right? You hear what I’m saying as words and not just variants of “shay” yeah?)

“Whoa, easy there little guy!” Jarena told him, almost laughing. “I gotcha, read you loud and clear!”

“Shay shay min, shaymin min” (”So, I’m not sure how to ask this… Umm, how did you get that first shadowcraft book? I really want to learn how to do it. Just for self defence, not to cheat or anything like you did! Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. But uh, could you help a Shaymin out? Just how to get started is all I’m asking. I tried googling in on my trainers phone but nothing shows up, at least not for sale.”)

“You sure about this?” Jarena asked, knowing how much it turned her life upside down. “It can get pretty messy if you don’t handle it carefully!”

“Min?” (”Please?”) The Shaymin asked, trying to put on a sad and sincere face.

“Well, okay, if you’re absolutely sure,” Jarena smiled, shrugging with a light chuckle and hoping that’s all they were going to use it for. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you! Anyway, since this stuff is pretty taboo, and now going to be even more so after this whole mishap. Anyway, you can’t be checking all those mainstream sites and auction places like ESale and PeekyPlaza. Shadowcraft is kind of, you know, black market stuff in a way. What worked for me and Violet is try finding those obscure mom and pop shops online that sell the typical tarot cards and voodoo stuff online and that kind of thing. They’ll sell the gimmicks online, sure. But it’s when you go to these places in person, now that’s opening up more options because now you’re under the radar. There you ask if they have any Shadowcraft stuff. Don’t be surprised if they don’t, it just means you need to keep looking. I remember going through a dozen places before I found a cool carrier. Oh, and another thing. It’s not cheap. But it works!”

“Well, I gotta go, miss!” Jarena smiled at the Shaymin. “Be careful with that stuff! It’s crazy sometimes!”

After Jarena had quickly caught up to Cassandra and Violet, the Ladies had met with Steven and Cynthia who hailed them down, offering to give Jarena and Violet their Pokémon back after they had been secured in lockup.

“I know this wasn’t an easy thing to do, but the three of you did the right thing,” Cynthia told them as the other guests moved along past them. “I know some rather harsh things have been circulating around about the three of you, but I feel what you did to come clean was very admirable. There are many that never would have done that.”

“I just wish other people saw it the same way that you did,” Cassandra replied as Jarena and Violet received their Pokéball belts back from Steven. “But there are many that never will. Yeah, it’s… probably best to not think about what they’re thinking…”

“Yeah… sorry about the mess, guys,” Jarena shrugged. “Probably best we keep our noses out of the whole battling thing now. I’m sure we’ll figure something else out, but it’s a bit too late tonight to think over it too much.”

“Farewell,” Violet told them both. “Thanks for understanding us at the end. There’s plenty of people that never would have done that either…”

“Yeah, I guess this is goodbye,” Cassandra told Steven and Cynthia. “Best of luck with everything.”

“Same to you,” Cynthia told her. “Don’t let other people bring you down.”

With that, Cassandra, Jarena, and Violet said one last final goodbye before they left, and it would be the last time they would ever see them again…

They continued down the length of the pier, but out of curiosity, Cassandra had turned to look at the cruise ship one last time. In the distance, she saw Avery, waving to her. Having not expected to see Avery again, Cassandra waved back, smiling as she felt good she got to see them one last time…

---

The Diamond Ladies
Diesel Bar, Castelia City
Affected RPers: @Desolate Divine

After that, they headed toward the heart of Castelia City. With the help of Cassandra’s phone GPS, Cassandra tracked the way to the Diesel Bar and the three of them walked the way there. Once they had arrived, Cassandra noticed it was about 10pm as she made her way through the heavy wooden door. Around the exterior and the interior, the Diesel Bar belonged to a very obvious car enthusiast, especially with muscle cars. Plenty of car-related memorabilia was all along the walls, in addition to neon signs for many well-known brands of beer and other forms of alcohol.

“Looks like the place,” Cassandra told the other two.

“Yeah, I’m underage, but I’ll just have a soda,” Jarena smiled, shrugging.

Cassandra stepped in first, followed by Jarena and Violet. Alyssa and Jon had greeted them, offering them a place at the table along with a drink.

“Hey there, guys,” Cassandra smiled, taking a seat as Jarena and Violet did the same.

Cassandra had requested a bottle of Black Pyroar Beer while Violet ordered a glass of Crimsonland Red Wine and Jarena asked for a bottle of soda.

"Look, this will be published, but I'm not doing this for ratings, or accolades as a writer." Alyssa explained, "I have always written with the desire to have my readers understand something better than they did before reading, so I guess I want to give you the chance to tell me what you want the people to understand. One last hurrah before you guys retire."

“Yeah, I imagine it’ll be a lot more informative than what they read on Twitter or those other garbage social media sites,” Cassandra smiled, though she knew the situation looked pretty grim.

Alyssa had then placed her phone on the table in front of Cassandra with the recorder on. It was making her think back to the confession yesterday, but this was a little different.

"So what do you have to say? About the cheating, getting caught, the tournament, moving forward, anything." Alyssa asked, "I want to hear what you have to say."

“Where to begin…” Cassandra started, feeling it was hard to pinpoint exactly how she wanted to start this interview. “I got on that ship never thinking this was how we would be stepping off, but then again, it feels like it was bound to happen sooner or later. True, sometimes dirty little secrets never get exposed and found out, but when they do, this kind of thing happens.”

“I’ll admit, for a long time, I let a lot of this get to my head,” Cassandra confessed, shrugging that she was certain her previous explanation to Cynthia was being distributed around. “I thought I could get away with anything, like we were special, sneaking around the rules and finding loopholes. It turned me into a pretentious freak and I think if I could go back in time, I would smack myself in the face for doing what I did. Wanting that fame was like a drug, and here I had found a way to get it. But it wasn’t the right way, obviously.”

“Yeah, we kind of got really caught up in it,” Jarena nodded, trying to smile despite feeling ashamed.

“We deserved to get caught, though,” Cassandra nodded. “What we did was just wrong and I’m sure it cost a lot of people wins and championship titles that they would have gotten instead of us. But as I felt before, it only seems right we shouldn’t be battling anymore, and I think a lifetime ban only seems right to enforce so that no one does anything like we did. As for the debt, well, I’m glad we had some help pulling that off.”

After taking a few sips from her beer, she then continued.

“The tournament was… well, it was different,” Cassandra continued. “I cheated my way up to the semifinals. That hadn’t changed, but battling Avery with legitimate approach… it was very revealing of what I’m like as a trainer. I had to learn to adapt rather than cheat, and use my head rather than my tricks. Even just winning one battle told me I and my team were strong enough to compete, although I realized… up to a certain extent. I think by not having a diversified team, getting them too used to having us for support, and having fewer Pokémon on hand… yeah, that’s where Jon did me in. But it was a good battle, at least I didn’t make it too easy for him.”

She lightly chuckled at that last comment, and then came the most difficult question of all.

“Moving forward… I’m not sure,” Cassandra replied, looking away to gather her thoughts. “I know our reputation is shot down and dead in the water, and we’ve essentially lost the love of our fans. Probably rightfully so, as we didn’t earn it the right way, so I can’t be too sore on it all as I know how disappointed they are. I think I would be, too, if my role model did this kind of thing. I guess one thing I’d like to say is yeah, Shadowcraft is real, it does work, but I think moving forward, we can’t change the past as much as I’d like to tell my younger self right now. I know we’ve used this stuff for a lot of bad things, but as Jarena said, there’s bound to be ways to use it for good. It’s like any other skill or tool… it can be used for good and bad things. I would like the chance to prove to someone… anyone, that it can be used for good regardless of where it comes from.”

“I’m not sure what the future holds for us,” Cassandra shrugged, looking down. “I guess it depends on luck and forgiveness at this point. I know we can never be League competitors ever again, which I wholly understand, but maybe some other career path is possible. I don’t know, it may take a bit of time for this to settle down before we can successfully move on and most of this mess passes over. I just hope it doesn’t take too long. None of us want this to be the only thing people think about us for the rest of our days.”

“I guess that’s it, really,” Cassandra concluded, trying to keep a hopeful smile. “I want to thank everyone who gave us a second chance and didn’t give up on us. Hopefully we can turn things around in the future and people in general can believe in us again, but that may be a long road. I just want to say ever since the confession, I’ve felt better about my conscience, even if there was a lot of negativity that came out of it. The truth is important, along with empathy, kindness, and understanding. It’s something I’ve learned the value of most of all during these past few days.”

With that, Cassandra felt she had said all that needed to be conveyed. She had taken another sip from her beer as Jon noticed the sense of resignation particularly about the finality of their battling careers.

"Just remember that your ban only means you can't participate in League events,” Jon told her. “Private battles are fair game, and I'll be keen for a rematch, and know a few people that would always be down for s training match or two. Hell, I want to see you beat me one day." Jon explained, "I have had an idea for what the future holds for Alyssa and myself, actually stemming from something you said to me. I don't want to go into too much detail right now because it could be a pipe dream, but hey, there could even be a place for you guys in that."

Jon finished his drink before placing down the glass.

"What I am trying to say is that you will bounce back. This door may have closed, but so many have opened for you guys, even if you don't see it yet. The world's your Cloyster."

“Hey, you’re a tough trainer, though, Mister Pokémon High Seas Tournament Champion!” Cassandra smiled, hoping his optimism would be right. “Maybe. I think I’d have to do a lot more catching and training before that happens. I’ll always love these Pokémon I have, but I definitely need to strategize, rebuild the team, and train them accordingly. It’ll take some time and work, but you know, I think it will be fun, too. Just don’t be surprised if our next battle involves a very different team.”

After Violet had finished her wine and Cassandra had emptied her bottle of beer, she saw it was already getting late and they still needed to find another room for the night.

“Well, we need to head out and get a room tonight,” Cassandra smiled as her eyes were already trying to fight sleep. “I definitely want to thank you both for not giving up on us despite how dirty our hands got. And Latios, too, he’s a funny dude. Before, I’ll admit you drove me crazy, but sometimes a kick in the butt like that is needed when it’s time to wake up.”

“Yeah,” Jarena laughed, shaking her head. “It worked though! And hey, whatever you guys plan on doing for the future, I hope it’s great for all of you. But have fun and be happy out there! Life’s worth living, so smile!”

“Be well,” Violet told Jon and Alyssa. “You’ve got a great team of Pokémon, Jon, but you and Alyssa make a great team, also. I’m confident you two and your Pokémon are ready for anything this world might throw at you.”

“Catch you later, Jon and Alyssa,” Cassandra smiled as the three of them stood up and prepared to head out. “Have a good night and a safe flight home.”

“Cheerio!” Jarena smiled as she waved goodbye.

“Thanks for the drinks,” Violet smiled. “And all the best for you and your Pokémon.”

And with that, they headed to the exit, walked out the large wooden door, and back into the restless Castelia City late-night streets…