A Journey of Two, a Pokemon Story

A brief discussion transpired between Willow and Violet on what they should do. Both girls wanted to explore the wreckage but worried that the other wouldn't. Despite their superficial personality differences, the two trainers were both similarly adventurous. As they approached the wreckage, the Pokemon ranger finally swooped down on his Charizard.

"What are you doing?" He asked, glancing nervously at the wrecked craft. "We should leave, now."

"Do you know what caused this?" Willow asked, gesturing at the remnants of the boat.

The ranger (who had yet to give either of them his name) hesitated before responding. "I don't know."

Willow looked at Violet for support, the two girls catching the hesitation in the ranger's voice. "Are you sure?" Willow pressed.

"I said I don't know." The ranger instinctively snapped, his eyes glancing at the gouges in the side of the wreckage. "...but I can guess."

"Was it Articuno?" Violet asked, looking at the various pieces of evidence on display.

"No," the ranger replied, seemingly relieved at the question. "The League tracks the legendary birds, Articuno's whereabouts in the last month are known."

Violet glanced at the hull, trying to view the damage in a new light. "Then what caused it?" She asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "You know more than you let on."

A flicker of surprise crossed the ranger's face. He gave her an appraising look before hesitantly clarifying, "I'm not supposed to say."

"According to the League or someone else?" Willow interrupted, holding a Pokeball in her hand while Heracross and Starmie stood dangerously by her side.

"I work for the League," the ranger said, a mixture of irritation and genuine anger in his voice at the veiled accusation. "Just … we've been looking for this ship for a month now."

"Ice Beam!" Willow exclaimed, snapping her fingers with a smile. "Lance has three Dragonite's, right?"

"He does," Violet chimed in, realizing what Willow was referring to. "The gashes aren't from Articuno, but two Dragonite's working together!" Pieces began to fall into place, the thickness of the ice on the top deck wasn't due to a single attack but instead sustained bombardment from a hovering Dragonite. Another two attacked the ship physically, while Lance kept the remaining portion of his team in reserve.

"...No comment," the ranger said with a regretful look on his face. "Just … just board the ship and get it over with."

Willow smirked triumphantly, exchanging a glance with Violet. "So it was League business," she said, her smirk widening as she looked at the grumpy expression worn by the ranger. "No wonder you've been so cagey."

The ranger groaned, rubbing his temples. "This is why I hate dealing with trainers. Just go have your fun."

"Got it," Willow chirped, her eyes sparkling. "C'mon Violet, let's uncover the League's dark secrets!"

Violet adjusted her feet, ensuring Lapras was stable in the water before she donned her climbing gloves. Leaping from the Transport Pokemon, she scaled the side of the vessel before vaulting the railing. The deck creaked loudly under her feet, the ice causing frost to grow on her insulated boots. One of her Pokeballs snapped open, revealing Umbreon who snarled at a familiar smell.

The Moonlight Pokemon's hair stood on end, his tail bristling while Violet sent out Gengar and Blissey to supplement their numbers. Willow, sensing her and Umberon's worry, sent out her Pokemon, shouting to the ranger, "Did the League end up catching these guys?"

"No, they managed to get away."

Willow looked at Violet with an expression of mild worry. "Does Umbreon recognize this place?"

Umbreon snapped at her, his nose twitching and eyes glancing in every direction.

"Not a place, a smell," Violet said, softly patting Umbreon's back to try and calm him. "I think this place is more important than we realized."

After all the build-up, the actual exploration of the ship was more straightforward than expected. Violet ended up leading most of it despite her fears due to the dark interior and flooded compartments. A part of her mind thought this wasn't the safest adventure, but at least she was somewhat prepared for it thanks to her caving and diving gear (it had been a while since she last used it). Continuing to look through the ship revealed a few interesting artifacts.

First was the extensive number of empty Pokeballs, many of which had Team Rocket's symbol on them. Second was the number of fried and destroyed electronics, with almost no digital data being salvageable. The last and most important bit of data was a set of three locations marked on a physical map.

Looking at the three locations, Violet and Willow decided to check out

[] Seafoam Island - Marked with a star inside a hazard sign, the collected documents show that Team Rocket was incredibly interested in what they could find here.
[] A Circle in the Ocean - A circle in the middle of the ocean with a set of dotted lines tracing a path to and from it, the ship seems to have visited it several times. It sounds like a base of some sort.
[] A Blackenned Blob - A portion of the ocean crossed out and coated with ink repeatedly, this was the one part of the map that Team Rocket bothered to modify. What is so important that they chose to hide it?
[] Notify the League - The team that defeated Umbreon's family has been on this ship. You are not prepared to take them on. Notify the League and leave.
[] Write-in

Well, it seems the Circle in the Ocean is where you are headed.


Edit: No update today sadly due to IRL

After the ranger (who had still not shared his name), informed the League of what they had found and were planning, the group of three diverted from their planned course towards the marked circle. Only two of the more adventurous Lapras decided to join them, which forced Violet and Willow to only have a few of their Pokemon out at any given time. However, this also meant that they were suddenly making much faster time, arriving in sight of their destination before sundown.

"How deep is the water here?" Willow asked after they had confirmed their location using the sun, compass, and map. "The water isn't clear enough to tell."

The ranger dove downwards, his Charizard using their wings to stay aloft and relatively stationary. "You have a Starmie, just check."

Willow glanced at him with an annoyed expression. "And what if it's dangerous? I'm not risking Starmie if Team Rocket is waiting underwater to capture them."

"I don't think we have any other options," replied the Pokemon ranger. "Well, besides diving ourselves." He added, clearly intending it to be taken sarcastically.

"I … I could check?" Violet proposed, realizing that it wasn't a bad idea to do so. The ranger snapping his head towards her in surprise did elicit a twitch from her, however.

"...That was a joke."

"Oh, do you have a spare tank?" Willow asked, clearly looking forward to the upcoming dive. "I can't let you have all the fun."

"You were just talking about how dangerous this could be …"

"That's only if we sent a single Pokemon in," Willow replied dismissively. "Everyone knows you don't go diving, caving, or cave diving alone. Just ask Violet!" She added with a chirp, "She does all three of those!"

"Not in a while," Violet replied, a nostalgic smile nonetheless appearing on her face. "A-and I haven't gone cave diving … yet."

The ranger looked between the two of them, somehow still not used to the two trainers despite having traveled with them for over a day. "...Fine, but I'm not letting you do this without supervision."

"Fine, you can join us," Willow said, tapping a finger on her chin as she added a question. "How many more adventures until you tell us your name?"

"Too many." Was the response.

Diving into the water, the three Pokemon trainers were immediately put on guard by the site in front of them. The ocean here was far shallower than they had expected, with an underwater sand bank providing a gently sloping surface for an underwater base. The top was littered with spinning turbines that drew power from the motion of the ocean with the base itself built out of a variety of towers and compartments that appeared dug into the sand itself.

Initially, the ranger hesitated, slowly falling behind Willow and Violet. Keeping an eye on him, Violet made a gesture, asking the ranger if he needed to surface.

He shook his head, and the three of them approached a tower that Violet identified as an airlock, diving underneath it before surfacing within a square entrance intended for divers to enter the base.

"Did we get a new shipment?" One of the four grunts in the room asked, looking at their colleagues in confusion.

"No," Willow replied, gently tossing four Pokeballs into the air. Before the grunts could even blink, Starmie unleashed a Surf, incapacitating them.

Violet pulled herself out of the water and into the base. Her first step was to look around the room, comparing it with what she saw from the outside. Identifying a few different control surfaces, her eyes landed on a camera with a red light. "We're on a time limit now."

A second later an alarm began to blare, and if she focused, Violet could hear the sounds of footsteps converging on their location. First would come a swarm of grunts, intended to try and draw out the various Pokemon available to them as well as possibly baiting them into a position where a single Explosion could do devastating damage.

With the sudden shift to action, Violet briefly stretched and contemplated the options available to her. Annoyingly but understandably, the Pokemon ranger had gone over to a control station and was in the middle of downloading all the information he could. Which meant he'd be out of the fight for the next few minutes.

[] Let Willow Handle the Initial Waves - Willow is clearly itching for a fight and her strategy of absurd speed and responsiveness is hard to prepare direct counters for. Let her handle the grunts then step in when more elite trainers arrive.
[] Blow Through Them - Charging forward into the incoming grunts is an unorthodox strategy and one that would normally be dangerous. However, the incoming trainers are strung out and separated allowing you to defeat them in detail. It does risk being overwhelmed by numbers and isolated.
[] Crush Them - Instead of letting Willow fight them herself, you could join her and help her out with Dragonite and Magnezone. It'd utterly destroy the incoming trainers, although it would reveal two of your seven Pokemon.
[] Holes in the Walls - You'll be facing a large number of trainers if you try to fight through the base. Based on what you've seen so far, they don't have enough breathing gear to supply all Rocket Trainers. You, however, have enough for the three of you. Blast holes in the walls and let the water in.
[] Write-in

GM Note: Sorry for the delay, I had some IRL incidents prevent me from writing updates last week. Nothing bad, just unexpected. The next update will be Friday as I'll be busy with holidays this week.

I actually forgot that I hadn't closed the vote until now, as it is it looks like letting Willow handle the initial waves wins. As it is, she's able to do so with a combination of Starmie and Minun thanks to Team Rocket's grunts enterring piecemeal at first before things dry out. After which Blissey heals up the group.

In the next update, after the grunts are taken care of, the three of you are met with a notably more organized effort from the Rockets, which should be very interesting.

As for training for the Plateau, I can confirm that you are underlevelled as it is for it. As such in order to get out of the group stage you'll need to get a variety of improvements via training and TMs. This adventure will help, but it'll only do so much.

Violet listened to the sounds in the base. The harsh, rhythmic pace set by the grunts as they ran towards them grew louder by the second. The pipes within the walls could be heard creaking and groaning across the facility while hatches and doors were opened one by one on the way to them. For a brief moment, Violet's gaze flickered to the walls and then to the oxygen tanks she had brought with them. Then she looked back to the ranger who was in the middle of clicking through a series of programs on his tablet.

The data being taken would be valuable to the league and destroying the base prematurely would prevent that from being useful. Willow meanwhile was in the middle of discussing plans with Starmie and Minun. The three of them spent several seconds chattering before Willow turned to her and began to speak.

Violet, however, knew what the question would be and preempted it. "Can you handle the incoming waves?"

Willow's grin turned sadistic. "I would be happy to."

The ranger muttered under his breath, "This is why I don't challenge new trainers."

Setting up in front of the entrance, Willow stood behind Starmie who stood behind Minun. The hatch just began to creak open before Minun began a series of electrical attacks while Starmie flooded the corridor with seawater. Electrocuting the first group of Team Rocket grunts, the corridor revealed a flooded section with the twitching, unconscious bodies of several Zubats, Rattatas, and grunts. Willow laughed, playing up her emotions from drama. "Is that all you got!" She yelled, her voice echoing through the corridor. "C'mon! Don't disappoint me now!"

A second group of two trainers entered the corridor, both of them a mixture of angry and fearful. Only to run into the same combination of electrical attacks carried through conductive seawater. Realizing that Willow wouldn't need her help, Violet turned towards the ranger. "How long do you need?"

"As long as it takes," he grunted, switching to another program after failing to breach another layer of encryption.

Violet looked at him and took a breath. "I-I need an answer to plan."

"And I can't give you one," the ranger snapped. "It's a distributed system with multiple encryption layers, and I don't know how many they have."

Violet clenched her fists, turning away from the ranger to do something more relaxing. Ensuring that Willow had matters handled, she glanced at the air vents in the room.

"Willow," she said calmly. "They're coming through the vents."

"Got it," Willow replied. "Starmie, move to that console over there and keep it up. Minun, take a few steps back and let the sparks flow some more."

Her Pokemon followed the orders, and when a Muk emerged from the vents it was met with the same attack that all the other trainers had fallen to. Positioned where they were, Starmie's Surf was able to hit both the corridor and the vents in one attack while Minun's electrical attacks were also more dispersed allowing for a weaker but wider stream of electricity to flow.

Minutes passed as wave after wave of attacks were met by Starmie and Minun. Then, all at once the grunts stopped coming.

"Well," Willow said, her grin remaining on her face. "That was a good warm-up. How much longer do I have to do this?"

"I already said I don't know," the ranger growled, all but snarling at his tablet. Switching to yet another program, he was clearly getting furious with the system. "Just let me focus for a bit."

Willow glanced at Violet, who was pointedly not looking at the ranger. "Someone's grouchy," she whispered, causing Violet to suppress a giggle.

A slow clap echoed through the corridors, causing Violet and Willow to look at the entrance. A set of two Persians advanced, with a member of Team Rocket behind them. "Alright," Willow said with a grin, "Looks like I need to teach the same lesson once more."

"Don't," Violet said softly, causing Willow to momentarily falter. A second later a set of twin Protects coated the two Persians as they continued to stride forward in what was clearly a choreographed entrance.

"Andrew Sequia, Pokemon ranger for the past 4 years with 5 badges," the Rocket began, intentionally adding a drawl to his words. "Willow Ashford of Saffron City with 6 badges; Violet Mills of Celadon City with 7 badges." He stopped in his tracks, taking a small bow. "I'm afraid you're trespassing, so I'll have to ask you to leave."

"This is an official League investigation," the ranger snarled, clearly angry at his name being so casually stated. "And you're under arrest."

"Me?" The Rocket asked as if surprised, his entire demeanor showing how much he enjoyed the back and forth. "For what crime?"

"You're a member of Team Rocket," Willow interrupted, giving an annoyed glare at the Rocket.

"And illegal mining, violations of undersea zoning laws, hiding evidence in an ongoing investigation," Andrew added, giving Willow an annoyed look.

"I may have done those," the Rocket replied with a smile.

"He's stalling," Violet spoke up, causing the Rocket's amused expression to crack. "One of his friends," Violet paused as the Rocket's expression shifted slightly. "No, two of his friends are swimming around us."

"Thunder, Surf, Brick Break" Willow immediately ordered throwing out Heracross causing both Persians to try and dodge the multitude of incoming attacks. Both failed, causing the two Pokemon to faint immediately. "Well …" Willow started, a bit surprised at how easy that was. "This'll be easy."

"Are you sure about that?" The Rocket said with a smile, causing Violet's eyes to widen. He wasn't meant to be a threat at all, he was just a distraction.

"Willow, with me!" She yelled, immediately putting on her mask and diving into the water coming face to face with a Gyarados charging a Hyper Beam along with a notably more dangerous Rhydon with a scuba mask stomping along the ocean floor. Two other trainers were present behind them, and with the limited time Violet had to act, she had to choose an opponent and Pokemon to send out to fight underwater. She was tempted to send out everyone, but one look at the trainers showed that they had a few ideas on how to counter that strategy such as with Explosion.

Choose 1 Pokemon to Face

[] Gyarados
[] Rhydon

Choose 1 Pokemon Send Out

[] Dragonite
[] Forretress
[] Blissey
[] Magnezone
[] Umbreon
[] Gengar
[] Slowbro
[] Write-in