(OOC: As it says in the title, this is going to get rather violent, so if that's not your thing, please refrain from reading, mmkay 
If you're interested in joining, either check out the thread under PRP Discussion, or PM me please.)
IC:
Lenora scanned the three faces around the underground chamber, her teal eyes hard, but she was distinctly aware of how tired she looked. The stress over the years had aged her quickly – grey streaked through her hair, the lines around her face had gone increasingly prominent, and everything she did exhausted her. However, everyone around her had the same look about them, and in some, their eyes were filled with panic, the kind of eyes that prey had, once they realised that they could not escape. She knew that their situation seemed hopeless now, and some would argue that it would be better to spend out their days in hiding with their Pokemon, but she hadn’t fought this long to give up when times got tough. Lenora had told anyone who wished to go cower for the rest of their lives to leave, and some had. Burgh had been among them.
All of the remaining members of the Pokemon League bar one sat before her now, the circles under their eyes just as dark as hers. The only exception was Caitlin – the woman had caked herself in so much makeup it looked like she wore a mask of calm serenity, but Lenora was willing to bet that she was the most exhausted of all of them. She glanced around the room, searching for the missing person, but nowhere did she see the muscular purple haired girl. That was typical Iris, not showing up for a meeting. She wasn’t an overly crucial member, so Lenora decided that she couldn’t wait any longer, and tapped her fist on a nearby pillar to get the attention of the leaders of the League.
“All right. Clay, what are the damages?” She wasn’t in the mood for fancy language.
“We’ve lost the majority of our force.” Clay stated in a flat tone. “Of our original 113 trainers, we’ve only 26 left, with those missin’ being killed or captured by the enemy. Of what we have left, two are in a bad way, and it’s not lookin’ too good for ‘em – Joy doesn’t think they’ll survive. Nine are still injured, but she said they’ll be fine. We lost 29 ‘mon in the fight, leavin’ us with 80 left. Also, food and other basic supplies are runnin’ low.”
Lenora bit her lip. With most of their force gone, it was unlikely that they’d ever be able to do any real damage to Team Plasma. Most civillian’s these days didn’t have the guts nor the firepower to defy Plasma, seeing as they were banned from owning Pokemon. Capturing more Pokemon was also difficult, as they’d run out of Pokeballs years ago, and any left in the region were closely guarded by Team Plasma. The PC Storage System wasn’t an option either – the whole thing was controlled by Plasma now, meaning that anyone who logged in unauthorized would quickly be hunted down. She would love to break the trainer’s Plasma had captured over the years out of prison, but the chances of success were minimal, and previous attempts had failed. She’d have to have a long hard think about it.
“What do you think we should do with those unfortunate 2 trainers?” Lenora asked, hoping that having a problem that was easier to solve would make the League feel a little less miserable.
Caitlin piped up. “We should leave them somewhere they’ll be found by Plasma – that way, they’re at least likely to receive medical attention.”
“I don’t feel that Plasma would be that kind, my dear.” Grimsley pointed out. “Why would they waste their resources looking after people who have actively rebelled against them? Plus, if they did save their lives, they’d then be likely to ah, ‘question’ them into revealing our location. I personally don’t wish to have to try and find a new place to hide, not this soon after losing our base in Lentimas.”
“Then what, we’re supposed to just let them die?” Caitlin said incredulously. “We’re so low on people these days that we need to at least try and keep them alive.”
Clay shook his head. “We don’t have the resources to do that lass. Joy says that it’s basically wasting time trying to keep them alive – she’s done all she can with what we’ve got. It would be kinder to euthanize them.”
A chill seeped through the room at the older man’s words. Lenora quietly cursed bringing the topic up – Clay was probably right, and accepting that would make things even grimmer.
“Tell Joy,” Lenora spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “That if possible, she should discuss their options with them and do what they wish. If it isn’t possible, she should make the call.” As Joy’s opinion on this had already been expressed, there was no doubt in her mind that they would soon only have 24 human members of the League remaining.
Caitlin looked miserable, but nodded and wrote the decision down on paper anyway. Lenora could tell that she and Clay felt as uncomfortable with this as Caitlin looked, which was probably the appropriate response to something like this. Only Grimsley looked unruffled – but then again, the man had a brilliant poker face.
“Okay, the next big problem is resources.” Lenora stated. “There’s actually tunnel from here that leads to the ocean near Relic Castle – we can obtain food from there. But for other things, I don’t think we should push Caitlin any fur-“
At that moment, the sound of running footsteps caused Lenora to pause as a trainer burst into the chamber. She recalled that his name was Elijah, a sandy haired youth whom had come here from Striaton City with his now dead father.
He took a deep breath, before words came spilling out. “L-Leaders! We just found that that Plasma have Cilan and Cress! They, they said that they were going to, going to execute them!”
Lenora’s eyes widened. The trio of men had completely rewritten their identities after the Plasma take over, and had been leaking the League information over the years. While they hadn’t personally met ever since that fateful night, she could remember their kindness towards trainers and Pokemon quite well. Losing their insider information was a blow.
“When will this be? And what about Chili?” She demanded.
Elijah trembled, clearly fairly distressed about this news, and seemed unable to continue for a moment, causing Grimsley to walk over to him. “Calm yourself boy.” He demanded. “This is important.”
“… The news report didn’t say what had happened to Chili.” He breathed. “And… they’re holding a public execution in Opelucid City in about… two hours. For them, and some of the other League members…”
Grimsley spun around instantly to face Lenora. “We can’t do anything. We don’t have the time to prepare and we’re weak enough as it is. Because this is public, there’s a chance that Plasma will be prepared for us to appear, and is hoping that in our haste we’ll make mistakes.”
“And you would just have us abandon our comrades like that, Mr. Grimsley?” A girlish voice asked from the corridor. Lenora’s eyes flicked towards the sound, and she found herself looking at Iris, whose pink cat like eyes were filled with fury. She stormed up to Grimsley, and despite standing a good head shorter than him, she seemed to glare him down.
“You heard my argument miss. It’s too risky. Its so close to Plasma Castle that N and Reshiram could appear if we do anything.” The dark type trainer would seem to be unphased to most people, but Lenora noticed he was leaning away ever so slightly, which for him was quite significant. Perhaps it was that strange look in her eyes, or her muscular figure that no pink lacy clothes could hide, or perhaps the savage dragon’s that she commanded that put the rest of the League a little on edge around her.
“Pffft, N hasn't been seen for years - he's way too cowardly to show his face. Look, we can’t just let people die like this. They’re worked with us, helped us fight – we can’t just abandon them. Besides,” A slight gleam came into her eye. “You say Plasma will expect us to be in one place? We can make that work.” The purple haired girl glanced around the room, and noting that she had everyone’s attention, grinned, revealing sharp teeth. “All right, here’s what I propose…”
***
Lucie winced as the pink haired Joy touched the burnt area on her arm, examining the blisters with a critical eye. She then pulled out a wad of cotton, and used it to dab antiseptic onto the wound, before getting a fresh bandage and loosely wrapping it back up.
“You’re lucky there was a water type nearby to douse you quickly.” Joy commented as she worked. “Otherwise this could have been a lot worse – if you’d remained on fire it probably would have burnt through all the layers of your skin, plus your jacket would have melted to your arm and we would have had to cut through your skin to remove it. You really need to be more careful.”
“Please spare me the gruesome details Joy.” Lucie cringed, the mental image of someone slowly cutting away at her wasn’t exactly the kind of thing she’d wanted to think of right now. “And besides, Mythos had just been killed by a Plasma grunt. I didn’t want to lose another friend.” The words seemed so careless and detached for someone describing the death of a close partner, but the brunette didn’t want to deal with the emotions at this point of time. She forced herself to think of his death as just another statistic, just a number, not a living and breathing creature whom she’d spent so much of her life with. Even so, there was an edge to her voice as they continued their conversation.
“I’m sorry you have to spend time doing this – you must be overworked at the moment.”
Joy shook her head. “It’s fine, really. I became a nurse because I enjoy seeing creatures recover and become healthy again – that hasn’t changed.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and the now sombre Elijah entered the room, holding a piece of paper in his trembling hands. “U-um, Lucie? Iris wanted to see you – she’s in the Volcarona Chamber.”
Lucie frowned, but complied, curious about what Iris would want. Despite the fact that she’d been with the League for a good five years now, up until recently they’d still had a fair number of people, so she’d never really gotten too involved with the Dragon type trainer. As she was mulling this over, about to leave the chamber, she heard a loud sob come from behind her, and turned towards the source of the sound. Joy was clutching a hand over her mouth, eyes starting to tear up as she read the piece of paper Elijah had given her. The pink haired woman looked up, and for a moment the two women stared at each other, before Joy gave a slight shake of her head. She turned, and looked in her first aid kit, pulling out two needles, and headed towards the back room.
The trainer was unsure of exactly what was going on, although she had a feeling it had something to do with the badly injured trainers, but Joy had said to leave it so… She left, quickly moving towards the Volcarona chamber in the Relic Castle, her eyes sliding past the details carvings. As she walked in, she noticed a gathering of about seven trainers and Iris standing slightly to the side. The purple haired girl quickly spoke up.
“About time you got here Miss Lucie.” She stretched her arms absentmindedly. “Now that you’re all here, I can inform you of the situation. Basically, I have pulled you all aside here because I believe that you are strong, and the only kind of people who can pull a stunt like this off. It recently came to our attention that Mr. Cilan and Mr. Cress, as well as many other members in the League who were captured in Lentimas Town will be executed in Opelucid Square in about, oh, an hour and a bit. Obviously, Plasma will be expecting us to try and do something about this, and as such it’s likely that most of their force will be focused around this area. So, we intend to use this to try and break out our members who are contained within the Opelucid prison. You are here because we need a diversion to try and force the Plasma members already waiting for us to call for enough reinforcements that the prison is not sufficiently protected enough, thus allowing the rest of the League to break in. Due to the nature of this mission, it will be highly dangerous, so anyone wanting out, please leave now.” Iris commanded.
There was an awkward silence, with a lot of shuffling feet and people glancing at one another, until Lucie heard someone murmur and apology, and scurried out of the room, as if she could feel Iris’s eyes blazing a hole into her back. Lucie considered the option of leaving for a moment, only to quickly determine that if their leaders thought this was the most useful thing for her to do in order to ensure victory in the long term, she should oblige. Plus, ever since Lentimas, she’d really wanted to punch someone in the face. The idea made her smile.
“Coward.” Iris muttered under her breath, before glancing back at the remaining people. “All right, so in summary, your mission is this: rescue the five members of the League to be executed, cause a big enough disruption by any means necessary, and come back alive. We’re low on numbers, and as such, we cannot afford for you to die, so if you fail that mission, I will personally drag you back from hell to kick your ass myself. Due to the Pokemon Plasma has using block around the city, we cannot directly teleport in there, so Caitlin will teleport us 7000ft or 2130m above the city. At this height, we will have approximately 30-40 seconds to react before hitting the ground. As the more mass there is, the more difficult it is for Caitlin to teleport us, your flying or levitating Pokemon you’ll use to break your fall will have to remain in your Pokeballs until such a time as you’re in the air, as she needs to preform more teleports afterwards. If you don’t have a Pokemon capable of this, find someone who does quickly.” She grinned and pointed at herself, just to highlight that they could ask her if they so wished.
“As for why we are not digging our way in, this is because the group overrunning the prison shall be doing this, and this way, we will catch the most amount of attention. The second team will be carrying flares to alert us to their position. Green will indicate that they are retreating, either to success or failure, and you should leave immediately to make your way to the top of Tubeline Bridge, where Caitlin will be waiting to teleport you back here. Red means they have failed and require assistance – if this occurs, you will need to go and assist them as quickly as possible.” Iris paused for a moment. “That’s about it – any questions, shout them at me. If not, go gather anything you need as quickly as possible, weapons or whatever, as we will need to be timing this according to when the captured League prisoners are out in the open.”
Lucie stared for a few moments blinking – this whole thing sounded completely insane, very high risk, high reward kind of business. But, she supposed that they were really in a desperate situation these days, and had to take any opportunity they could get. It then occurred to her that she had no Pokemon capable of breaking her fall, and quickly raised her hand. “Has anyone got spare room on a flying type? I don’t have one.” She queried.
If you're interested in joining, either check out the thread under PRP Discussion, or PM me please.)IC:
Lenora scanned the three faces around the underground chamber, her teal eyes hard, but she was distinctly aware of how tired she looked. The stress over the years had aged her quickly – grey streaked through her hair, the lines around her face had gone increasingly prominent, and everything she did exhausted her. However, everyone around her had the same look about them, and in some, their eyes were filled with panic, the kind of eyes that prey had, once they realised that they could not escape. She knew that their situation seemed hopeless now, and some would argue that it would be better to spend out their days in hiding with their Pokemon, but she hadn’t fought this long to give up when times got tough. Lenora had told anyone who wished to go cower for the rest of their lives to leave, and some had. Burgh had been among them.
All of the remaining members of the Pokemon League bar one sat before her now, the circles under their eyes just as dark as hers. The only exception was Caitlin – the woman had caked herself in so much makeup it looked like she wore a mask of calm serenity, but Lenora was willing to bet that she was the most exhausted of all of them. She glanced around the room, searching for the missing person, but nowhere did she see the muscular purple haired girl. That was typical Iris, not showing up for a meeting. She wasn’t an overly crucial member, so Lenora decided that she couldn’t wait any longer, and tapped her fist on a nearby pillar to get the attention of the leaders of the League.
“All right. Clay, what are the damages?” She wasn’t in the mood for fancy language.
“We’ve lost the majority of our force.” Clay stated in a flat tone. “Of our original 113 trainers, we’ve only 26 left, with those missin’ being killed or captured by the enemy. Of what we have left, two are in a bad way, and it’s not lookin’ too good for ‘em – Joy doesn’t think they’ll survive. Nine are still injured, but she said they’ll be fine. We lost 29 ‘mon in the fight, leavin’ us with 80 left. Also, food and other basic supplies are runnin’ low.”
Lenora bit her lip. With most of their force gone, it was unlikely that they’d ever be able to do any real damage to Team Plasma. Most civillian’s these days didn’t have the guts nor the firepower to defy Plasma, seeing as they were banned from owning Pokemon. Capturing more Pokemon was also difficult, as they’d run out of Pokeballs years ago, and any left in the region were closely guarded by Team Plasma. The PC Storage System wasn’t an option either – the whole thing was controlled by Plasma now, meaning that anyone who logged in unauthorized would quickly be hunted down. She would love to break the trainer’s Plasma had captured over the years out of prison, but the chances of success were minimal, and previous attempts had failed. She’d have to have a long hard think about it.
“What do you think we should do with those unfortunate 2 trainers?” Lenora asked, hoping that having a problem that was easier to solve would make the League feel a little less miserable.
Caitlin piped up. “We should leave them somewhere they’ll be found by Plasma – that way, they’re at least likely to receive medical attention.”
“I don’t feel that Plasma would be that kind, my dear.” Grimsley pointed out. “Why would they waste their resources looking after people who have actively rebelled against them? Plus, if they did save their lives, they’d then be likely to ah, ‘question’ them into revealing our location. I personally don’t wish to have to try and find a new place to hide, not this soon after losing our base in Lentimas.”
“Then what, we’re supposed to just let them die?” Caitlin said incredulously. “We’re so low on people these days that we need to at least try and keep them alive.”
Clay shook his head. “We don’t have the resources to do that lass. Joy says that it’s basically wasting time trying to keep them alive – she’s done all she can with what we’ve got. It would be kinder to euthanize them.”
A chill seeped through the room at the older man’s words. Lenora quietly cursed bringing the topic up – Clay was probably right, and accepting that would make things even grimmer.
“Tell Joy,” Lenora spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “That if possible, she should discuss their options with them and do what they wish. If it isn’t possible, she should make the call.” As Joy’s opinion on this had already been expressed, there was no doubt in her mind that they would soon only have 24 human members of the League remaining.
Caitlin looked miserable, but nodded and wrote the decision down on paper anyway. Lenora could tell that she and Clay felt as uncomfortable with this as Caitlin looked, which was probably the appropriate response to something like this. Only Grimsley looked unruffled – but then again, the man had a brilliant poker face.
“Okay, the next big problem is resources.” Lenora stated. “There’s actually tunnel from here that leads to the ocean near Relic Castle – we can obtain food from there. But for other things, I don’t think we should push Caitlin any fur-“
At that moment, the sound of running footsteps caused Lenora to pause as a trainer burst into the chamber. She recalled that his name was Elijah, a sandy haired youth whom had come here from Striaton City with his now dead father.
He took a deep breath, before words came spilling out. “L-Leaders! We just found that that Plasma have Cilan and Cress! They, they said that they were going to, going to execute them!”
Lenora’s eyes widened. The trio of men had completely rewritten their identities after the Plasma take over, and had been leaking the League information over the years. While they hadn’t personally met ever since that fateful night, she could remember their kindness towards trainers and Pokemon quite well. Losing their insider information was a blow.
“When will this be? And what about Chili?” She demanded.
Elijah trembled, clearly fairly distressed about this news, and seemed unable to continue for a moment, causing Grimsley to walk over to him. “Calm yourself boy.” He demanded. “This is important.”
“… The news report didn’t say what had happened to Chili.” He breathed. “And… they’re holding a public execution in Opelucid City in about… two hours. For them, and some of the other League members…”
Grimsley spun around instantly to face Lenora. “We can’t do anything. We don’t have the time to prepare and we’re weak enough as it is. Because this is public, there’s a chance that Plasma will be prepared for us to appear, and is hoping that in our haste we’ll make mistakes.”
“And you would just have us abandon our comrades like that, Mr. Grimsley?” A girlish voice asked from the corridor. Lenora’s eyes flicked towards the sound, and she found herself looking at Iris, whose pink cat like eyes were filled with fury. She stormed up to Grimsley, and despite standing a good head shorter than him, she seemed to glare him down.
“You heard my argument miss. It’s too risky. Its so close to Plasma Castle that N and Reshiram could appear if we do anything.” The dark type trainer would seem to be unphased to most people, but Lenora noticed he was leaning away ever so slightly, which for him was quite significant. Perhaps it was that strange look in her eyes, or her muscular figure that no pink lacy clothes could hide, or perhaps the savage dragon’s that she commanded that put the rest of the League a little on edge around her.
“Pffft, N hasn't been seen for years - he's way too cowardly to show his face. Look, we can’t just let people die like this. They’re worked with us, helped us fight – we can’t just abandon them. Besides,” A slight gleam came into her eye. “You say Plasma will expect us to be in one place? We can make that work.” The purple haired girl glanced around the room, and noting that she had everyone’s attention, grinned, revealing sharp teeth. “All right, here’s what I propose…”
***
Lucie winced as the pink haired Joy touched the burnt area on her arm, examining the blisters with a critical eye. She then pulled out a wad of cotton, and used it to dab antiseptic onto the wound, before getting a fresh bandage and loosely wrapping it back up.
“You’re lucky there was a water type nearby to douse you quickly.” Joy commented as she worked. “Otherwise this could have been a lot worse – if you’d remained on fire it probably would have burnt through all the layers of your skin, plus your jacket would have melted to your arm and we would have had to cut through your skin to remove it. You really need to be more careful.”
“Please spare me the gruesome details Joy.” Lucie cringed, the mental image of someone slowly cutting away at her wasn’t exactly the kind of thing she’d wanted to think of right now. “And besides, Mythos had just been killed by a Plasma grunt. I didn’t want to lose another friend.” The words seemed so careless and detached for someone describing the death of a close partner, but the brunette didn’t want to deal with the emotions at this point of time. She forced herself to think of his death as just another statistic, just a number, not a living and breathing creature whom she’d spent so much of her life with. Even so, there was an edge to her voice as they continued their conversation.
“I’m sorry you have to spend time doing this – you must be overworked at the moment.”
Joy shook her head. “It’s fine, really. I became a nurse because I enjoy seeing creatures recover and become healthy again – that hasn’t changed.”
They sat in silence for a moment, and the now sombre Elijah entered the room, holding a piece of paper in his trembling hands. “U-um, Lucie? Iris wanted to see you – she’s in the Volcarona Chamber.”
Lucie frowned, but complied, curious about what Iris would want. Despite the fact that she’d been with the League for a good five years now, up until recently they’d still had a fair number of people, so she’d never really gotten too involved with the Dragon type trainer. As she was mulling this over, about to leave the chamber, she heard a loud sob come from behind her, and turned towards the source of the sound. Joy was clutching a hand over her mouth, eyes starting to tear up as she read the piece of paper Elijah had given her. The pink haired woman looked up, and for a moment the two women stared at each other, before Joy gave a slight shake of her head. She turned, and looked in her first aid kit, pulling out two needles, and headed towards the back room.
The trainer was unsure of exactly what was going on, although she had a feeling it had something to do with the badly injured trainers, but Joy had said to leave it so… She left, quickly moving towards the Volcarona chamber in the Relic Castle, her eyes sliding past the details carvings. As she walked in, she noticed a gathering of about seven trainers and Iris standing slightly to the side. The purple haired girl quickly spoke up.
“About time you got here Miss Lucie.” She stretched her arms absentmindedly. “Now that you’re all here, I can inform you of the situation. Basically, I have pulled you all aside here because I believe that you are strong, and the only kind of people who can pull a stunt like this off. It recently came to our attention that Mr. Cilan and Mr. Cress, as well as many other members in the League who were captured in Lentimas Town will be executed in Opelucid Square in about, oh, an hour and a bit. Obviously, Plasma will be expecting us to try and do something about this, and as such it’s likely that most of their force will be focused around this area. So, we intend to use this to try and break out our members who are contained within the Opelucid prison. You are here because we need a diversion to try and force the Plasma members already waiting for us to call for enough reinforcements that the prison is not sufficiently protected enough, thus allowing the rest of the League to break in. Due to the nature of this mission, it will be highly dangerous, so anyone wanting out, please leave now.” Iris commanded.
There was an awkward silence, with a lot of shuffling feet and people glancing at one another, until Lucie heard someone murmur and apology, and scurried out of the room, as if she could feel Iris’s eyes blazing a hole into her back. Lucie considered the option of leaving for a moment, only to quickly determine that if their leaders thought this was the most useful thing for her to do in order to ensure victory in the long term, she should oblige. Plus, ever since Lentimas, she’d really wanted to punch someone in the face. The idea made her smile.
“Coward.” Iris muttered under her breath, before glancing back at the remaining people. “All right, so in summary, your mission is this: rescue the five members of the League to be executed, cause a big enough disruption by any means necessary, and come back alive. We’re low on numbers, and as such, we cannot afford for you to die, so if you fail that mission, I will personally drag you back from hell to kick your ass myself. Due to the Pokemon Plasma has using block around the city, we cannot directly teleport in there, so Caitlin will teleport us 7000ft or 2130m above the city. At this height, we will have approximately 30-40 seconds to react before hitting the ground. As the more mass there is, the more difficult it is for Caitlin to teleport us, your flying or levitating Pokemon you’ll use to break your fall will have to remain in your Pokeballs until such a time as you’re in the air, as she needs to preform more teleports afterwards. If you don’t have a Pokemon capable of this, find someone who does quickly.” She grinned and pointed at herself, just to highlight that they could ask her if they so wished.
“As for why we are not digging our way in, this is because the group overrunning the prison shall be doing this, and this way, we will catch the most amount of attention. The second team will be carrying flares to alert us to their position. Green will indicate that they are retreating, either to success or failure, and you should leave immediately to make your way to the top of Tubeline Bridge, where Caitlin will be waiting to teleport you back here. Red means they have failed and require assistance – if this occurs, you will need to go and assist them as quickly as possible.” Iris paused for a moment. “That’s about it – any questions, shout them at me. If not, go gather anything you need as quickly as possible, weapons or whatever, as we will need to be timing this according to when the captured League prisoners are out in the open.”
Lucie stared for a few moments blinking – this whole thing sounded completely insane, very high risk, high reward kind of business. But, she supposed that they were really in a desperate situation these days, and had to take any opportunity they could get. It then occurred to her that she had no Pokemon capable of breaking her fall, and quickly raised her hand. “Has anyone got spare room on a flying type? I don’t have one.” She queried.
