Aria Jegudiel
Phoenix Battalion
Castelia City, Unova (Castelia skies)
Affected RPers: @Death’s Spook

Every single beat of Aria’s wings was laced with tension, and Orville - beautiful sympathetic Pokemon that he was - could tell. He pulled up beside her, matching her pace, and shot her a look of concern. Although he made no effort to talk to her directly, he seemed to be trying to send feelings of confidence and peace over their still-open telepathic link. She smiled to herself at the show of affection and took a deep breath.

[i]You are where you need to be,[i] she reminded herself firmly, but her mind couldn’t help but wander back to her first meeting with her new employer - the musical star Michael Phloros.

For most people, the name “Michael Phloros” conjured up images of bright lights, stages, screeching fangirls, and tastefully obnoxious pop music.

For Aria, the name conjured up images of blood and gore that had left her retching in her quarters at the Magi Hall half the night after she had met Phloros had met two days ago.

Her distraction, and morbid fascination with the memories of the sudden violence, was why she very nearly missed the Neko, Vivillon, and Gardevoir that seemed to materialize in front of her until it was too late.

With a snap, her wings opened, providing an effective brake that stopped her from running headlong into Phloros and his Pokemon. However, the brake also took away all of Aria’s lift, which was why she barked out a magic-infused order - “Winds, converge!” - before she even began to slow. Beneath her feet, the winds swirled upward, carrying with them bits of cloud. While the wind didn’t form a solid platform - even the strongest magician couldn’t force the air to become a flat, even surface - it held her up in the center of a sort of localized tornado. Orville buzzed over to her and landed on the rim of the wind platform. Unlike her, however, he kept his wings slightly spread and his tail raised, making it clear that he was ready to spring into action at a moment’s notice.

Nausea roiled in Aria’s gut and it had nothing to do with the fact that she was standing on moving air. Ordinarily, the sight of a Neko levitating in the air with a Vivillon on his head and a Gardevoir beside him might’ve been amusing, especially when that Neko was a pop star who dressed for the stage. However, that Vivillon… One look at those pixel eyes and she was reminded of the Charizard whose guts the Vivillon had literally detonated. Before that evening, she had only seen violence in practice bouts, and had only seen internal organs in healing and anatomy classes. Because of her worry, she ensured that she was keeping a strong posture and a level expression - she’d found over the years that projecting confidence was the best way to feel it.

“Hello, Aria,” Michael Phloros said calmly, his hands - paws? Aria had never been sure what, exactly the Neko and Chua prefered their extremities to be called - behind his head in a peaceful gesture. “Is everything set for your tenure with me?”

His tone was friendly. Despite herself, Aria actually liked his voice. When she had agreed to travel with him, she had decided to listen to some of his music to figure out what sort of autotune-riddled drivel she was going to have to put up with for the next several months, and possibly more than that. She had been pleasantly surprised - Michael did have, as far as she could tell, a genuinely beautiful singing voice, and his voice was ear-pleasing even when he wasn’t singing.

Appearances could be deceiving. Aria hoped that in this case, they weren’t, and that Michael’s behavior during the attack that they’d been through had been born purely of necessity. But she was far from sure. The incongruencies between his usual, wild-but-ditzy public behavior and his ruthless competency at the site of the ambush were too large to ignore, and whenever Aria analyzed the schism, she found yet another reason to get nervous about it.

But it had given Aria some useful insights: one thing was for sure, Phloros did the things he did for a reason; everything seemed to be about image and presentation, until the situation came down to life-and-death. It took Aria a few seconds to figure out why Tifón the killer butterfly had been brought along, but she was pretty sure that she knew the answer: Michael wanted to present power and make sure that Aria knew exactly what she was dealing with. She thought the reminder pointless and annoying, as she wasn’t going to turn on him unless he went back on their deal or turned out to be some form of rampaging psychopath. But she felt no need to play that game herself. So when she answered Phloros, she smiled politely and kept a loose, easy grip on her staff. If she needed to remind him that she could electrocute someone to death with a muttered word, then he wouldn’t have hired her to be his bodyguard.

“Of course, of course,” she said; she had been sure to pack all of her essentials - toothbrush and other toiletries, Mirror, and some reading material - into her satchel before leaving. She tried to at least sound friendly, as she was in for a miserable time if she couldn’t build something of a rapport with her new boss. “As discussed, I’ve left the library keycard with my Acolytes; all of us are most grateful for it.” She couldn’t help feeling a surge of pride when she said “my Acolytes”. “And I have my Pokemon already with me, of course.”

There was a brief pause as Aria tried to think of what to say next. She was still a little flustered, as she had been prepared to meet Phloros on the ground and his abrupt arrival had caught her off guard. “So,” she said brightly, flicking her wings in readiness to take off again, “shall we go?”