Rocky Road ~ House of Brisa, Dave, Koa, and Owen

[Dragonfree]

"Yeah, well, good track record or no, kids have no business trying to take down people with guns." Dave took a swig of his drink and put it down on the coffee table. At least Starr didn't like this one bit either.

"So, what, in your universe kids just go on a trainer journey and nobody worries about them? Ten-year-olds running around unsupervised confronting all the gangs they like, parents just shrug and don't expect them home?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr let out a snort. "Yeah, no, most kids aren't exactly running around getting into fights with Rockets on their journey. Just the usual sanitized League circuit--following the routes, sleeping in Pokecenters, calling home every weekend begging to dump half their allowance on dumb shit. Nothing special."

But then something about the way he'd said it jumped out at her. 'Unsupervised'? Well yeah. As opposed to having a parent escort you around? That's was a Pokemon's job.

"...Trainer journeys are a thing where you're from, right?" They had to be. How the hell else were you supposed to learn how to take care of yourself? (Some kind of class?)

 

[Dragonfree]

"I mean, yeah, but kids stay on the routes and trainer transport. There are adults around, rangers making sure you're not wandering off somewhere you could get eaten, or getting into fights with fucking criminal gangs. If you want to go off doing whatever at your own risk you need to be eighteen with an adult license. A kid's GPS reports they're somewhere they're not supposed to be and they haven't called anyone, they're going to call in the fucking rangers while your parents have a heart attack. You know?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr tilted her head. "Huh. Yeah, we've got rangers and League managers and such running things too. Keeping idiots out of the deepwilds and crap. Though I think GPS stuff can only be grabbed in emergencies? Privacy and all that."

Not that Team Rocket gave a shit about privacy. She'd had the intel guys check all the new recruits' coordinates obsessively, trying to figure out which ones were rebels. But of course Sebastian had gotten Lexx to do some kind of tech bullshit to change their location.

She went to take another drink, remembered it was empty, and crushed the can in her paw. Sure sounded like Dave came from some kinda surveillance state. Bet they could read all their kids' texts and vet their friends too. There were a few places like that back home, but thank god Tohjo wasn't one of 'em. Fucking creepy.

"Anyway even if the League did spy on everyone 24/7, I doubt hanging around downtown Celadon a bunch would trip off any alarms--there's a gym there. And like, even if some rando kid did show up knocking on HQ's front door, it's not like the Rockets would give a shit. The only reason my friends got in too deep was that they had inside help. The whole rebel situation is not normal."

 

[Dragonfree]

"I mean, nobody's spying on everyone 24/7, but this is kids as young as ten we're talking about. You can't just send a fucking ten-year-old out to fend for themselves for a span of months and shrug and hope for the best without some kind of assurance that someone will notice if something goes wrong. Maybe you ditch the GPS by the time they're--" He stopped, squinting at Starr. "Hang on, you've got a criminal organization just hanging out right by the fucking Pokémon gym?" What the hell kind of place did she even live in.

He sighed in exasperation. "So what, do your friends' parents just merrily think they've been challenging gyms this whole time?"

He imagined the Pokémorphs just secretly fighting criminals with nobody the wiser. Just learning one day that they were already dead, had been doing this the whole time and they just never knew. (Jean would fucking do that, wouldn't she.)

Dave grabbed his bottle again and chugged down half of it.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr put a paw to her her forehead. "I'm not saying it's like across the street or anything, I just mean nothing would seem weird if you got an email saying your kid was in downtown whatever." Maybe Celadon was a bad example, everyone knew the west side of town was seedy. Saffron? That base was white collar as hell.

Anyway. He wanted to what their parents thought they were doing? She'd never even met Jade's parents, why on earth was he obsessed with them like they had some kind of magic ability to fix everything bad with the world? Ajia's dad was a ranger so maybe he could pull something with his connections, but like. The guy worked in an office, what was he supposed to do in a fight.

"Challenging gyms... probably? How should I know? We did spend the past nine months doing normal trainer shit so it's not even like it's that much of a lie. There was just... an incident at the League before I left, and they got dragged back in, and..." Her voice trailed off. That was ages ago. Right before she'd been brought to Cibus, her last human memory, and it felt like a million years ago with how much had happened since then.

"...God, you wouldn't believe the 48 hours I was having before Diyem brought me here," she finished tiredly.

 

[Dragonfree]

Jesus. What was even going on in that world? He put the bottle back on the table, slumped back on the couch. Did he want to know? Probably not.

"Not that much of a lie, huh. Great. What about before this nine-month break from hunting down criminals?" (These kids had been doing this for the better part of a year, fuck.) "Just cheerfully call home in between episodes of mortal danger, pretending everything's fine? 'Hey, Dad, definitely didn't get fucking shot at today'?"

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr threw her arms in the air. "Maybe! Not like I'd know when I was the one hunting them down at the time," she growled, averting her eyes.

Goddamn it. She didn't want to get heated. She didn't have the energy for it. Not now. But just... fuck.

She took a deep breath, keeping her claws from digging into her palms. "Look, I don't know what kinda cover story any of the rebels had. I figured normal trainer shit, the kind of stuff no one would bat an eye at. Not like I've got anyone to give a cover story to anyway." The words were out of her mouth before she realized how much they burned.

 

[Dragonfree]

Shit. Fucking hell.

Dave dragged a paw over his face. It wasn't like it even fucking mattered. Why should he even care what Starr's friends over in a different universe told their parents about their Team Rocket escapades that had fucking nothing to do with him.

"Look, I'm sorry." He sighed, reached for the bottle again and sipped it, keeping his eyes trained on the coffee table. Fuck. "The real point is, your dad's fucking vile. None of this is your fault."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr looked up, eyeing him carefully. It didn't... seem like he was just bullshitting. He still didn't fucking understand anything (saying it's not your fault, like you didn't actually choose to do anything), but... something about it felt good to hear.

"...Thanks," she muttered finally, still unsure what, exactly, she was feeling. Just that it wasn't the worst.

 

[Dragonfree]

Starr looked almost confused, somehow. A kid who'd been made to hunt people down. Dave's psychic grip tightened on the bottle, and he downed the rest of it in one gulp before dumping it on the table with the others.

And what, of all people to send after these plucky kid rebels, to hunt them down, Giovanni'd chosen his teenage fucking daughter? Were they already friends? God, he hoped not.

He glanced back at her, then away again. Goddamn it, where was Brisa? He sure wasn't making the wait any better for Starr.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr was silent for a long time. Dave didn't reply. She was okay with that.

"Probably sounds like my world's a shithole the way I'm describing all this," Starr finally said, breaking the silence. "Most people have a pretty good time on their journeys. We're just special I guess," she added with a dry laugh. Jade and Ajia doubly so--they actually had to deal with that Legendary bullshit directly.

"It used to be that every day I'd think about going home. Spent half my time missing my friends, and my team. I guess I've gotten used to things here, though." She didn't... want to stay here, but... somehow the idea of leaving and forgetting it all made her throat clench.

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave took a breath. He'd thought to himself a few times earlier on that he couldn't wait to go home and forget any of this ever happened, hadn't he. Fuck.

"Well, my world is a shithole. There's no tangible force of friendship and determination. Kids confronting gun-toting lunatics just fucking die."

 

[Chibi Pika]

A chill fell over Starr. She stared at him, mouth dry.

The acting weird about guns. The being obsessed with kids being in danger, and parents not knowing where they were at. God dammit he had a dead kid shit fuck.

“...That fucking sucks,” she said finally, avoiding his eye.

 

[Dragonfree]

That fucking sucks. Yeah. That was one way to put it.

"It's not like Cibus isn't fucking nuts. Full of gods and world-ending threats and weird bullshit, new fucking existential threat every week. Two of them this week, go figure." Fucking Soda. The teetering madness in his voice, everything everything everything, was still echoing in the back of his mind, hadn't properly left his head since it'd happened. "But at least the closest anyone's actually come to death is a little temporary trip to the fucking Voidlands. Got that going for it. So far, anyway."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Starr nodded distantly, but her mind was elsewhere. A pitch-dark night lit by raging flames. Gunshots. Kids running and screaming. Scouring the stadium in a singeminded daze, not knowing if she'd find her best friend dead or if she'd have to kill her herself.

On Cibus, you could get people back. She'd gotten Brisa back. That was one thing this place had over their worlds.

"So like..." she began, her voice low, "are you in the same spot as Brisa--nothing worth going back to, that sort of thing?"

 

[Dragonfree]

He looked up. What? "No, I'm... I've got kids who need me. My daughter Jean. Who else is going to fight for them? Not fucking Howard."

God. He laid his head back down on the arm of the couch. "Shame Jean's never going to meet Brisa," he muttered. "Would've loved her. Or you, for that matter. Big fan of Fire-types."

 

[Chibi Pika]

Oh. He had other kids. Yeah, of course he'd want to go back. She should've figured.

The idea of meeting his kids as an Incineroar sure was a mental image. It vaguely made her imagine him returning home to his kids as a Mightyena.

"She's got good taste--half my team's Fire-type," Starr replied idly. Then the important detail in what he'd said jumped out at her. "Wait... fight for them?"

 

[Dragonfree]

Dave rubbed his face. Fuck. Shouldn't have said that. He did not have anywhere close to the energy to go through the entire explanation of the Pokémorphs right now. Especially when his track record for explaining it to former humans so far involved one guy digging drunken memories out of his brain and another deciding he was some kind of fucking pedophile.

"It's... complicated. They're pretty different, and there are a lot of systemic barriers, and laws, and just... fuck."

 

[Chibi Pika]

"...Right. Never mind." It made sense that he wouldn't want to talk about tiring political shit. She wouldn't want to talk about that either. Also, he looked about ready to collapse.

"Look, if you wanna go back to sleep, don't let me stop you. I'll be fine waiting for Brisa on my own," Starr said, leaning back in the chair.