Pokémon Legends: Court of Kings

[Marsuru]

'Hello to you too, little sister,' Zack replied with a frown. 'Finished your period, or should we brace ourselves again?'  

[Klarp Glornharm]

Manny didn't seem in any hurry to move his hand from his face, but Sal's arrival saved Ben from having to explain that they might need their Pokémon.

"Hey. Yeah, we weren't waiting too long." It had felt like forever.

Zack's response to his sister had Ben looking at him with a raised eyebrow. Okay. So he couldn't really say anything there, maybe they were close enough for jokes like that. But they couldn't afford infighting before something this big.

"You were kind of vague. This where you're meeting Skar?" It would be their luck if the pirate just showed up right then. But life wasn't that comedically inconvenient.  

[Jump Einatz]

Salieri also raised an eyebrow at Zack's joke. "You're gross."

Then she addressed Ben. "No, I made a meeting site at the city, but we've got a problem." She plopped herself onto Banksy's shell, which the Torkoal was indifferent to. "He wants to meet soon. Like in two hours from now. I tried to push it back, but he wasn't having it, so here we are. We need to get our act together and fast."

Salieri ran a hand through her air, and then gently pet Banksy on the head. Even though this deal would give Skarada no reason to stay in Kalos, she wasn't doing it for her country. She was doing it for her family. Zack and Ben already knew that, so she wasn't going to give them that spiel again. "I've got some more ideas to flesh out the plan. Zack, Helena needs to talk to you, so how about you guys get that out of the way so we can really focus. Ben and I can start talking shop."

She gave Helena a quick look, while covering her mouth so the boys couldn't see her mouth the words "Are you?", referring to Zack's accusation.  

[Spinne Biss]

Helena frowned when Zack made his comment. "No, everyone should hear this." Whatever business they had with Ska wasn't something that Helena intended to pry into. It wasn't her place.

She did, however, respect that they were in a hurry. Helena went on to explain what happened with Jean to Zack and Benedict. It was easier to tell the story a second time, but not by much.  

[Marsuru]

'Like making fun of someone with a broken arm isn't a horrible thing to do,' Zack grumbled, mostly to himself but just loud enough for everyone to hear it. That's the problem with people getting to know him; they lose all sympathy. Still, he listened to Helena's story and wasn't quite sure what to feel. Anger, sure, but with so much going on his capacity for emotional reactions was temporarily tapped out.

Besides, his mentor had taught him to focus on the task at hand, no matter what tried to grab his attention. The fact was that Helena was safe and sound enough to make fun of him literally having his arm snapped in half and put in a sling, which, he reminded himself, is pretty uncalled for and warrants like three period jokes. As long as she stayed that way, the Jean situation could go on the back-burner.

But since he couldn't vocalise that thought process and she probably expected a response, he went with: 'Well. That's distracting. Anyway, we've got something to do, so stay here while we do it. And uh, don't flip your s**t or anything but someone trashed the tower's back yard and they'll probably want help fixing it. You can do that if you're bored.'  

[Klarp Glornharm]

Benedict listened to the story of Jean and felt sick to his stomach the more it went on. That kind of person was pretty much exactly the sort he'd felt needed justification for lethal force. But, it wasn't really his place to get too into all of that, so he crossed his arms and nodded. "I'm sorry you had to meet that guy. Unfortunately, we'll have to deal with that later, when we can. Zack's right, we've got something more immediate to deal with."

He tried to put this new threat out of his mind for now and gestured to Manny. "So far, we know the plan is to catch him from a distance. We also know that we'll be using Telepathy to keep in touch with each other. Manny can use it to locate sources of aura, and minds." That likely came from the fact that he could use Mind Reader, on top of the telepathy. But then, he didn't have any actual experience with other telepathic pokemon. Not really.

"Meaning we can keep track of Skar's back-up if we're not caught." He was saying this for the sake of catching Zack up, and given what Helena had been through, he wasn't in any hurry to brush her off to the side. She was adult enough to decide to be a part of it or not. Whatever Zack's personal thoughts seemed to be on the matter.

"You said you had a few ideas already Sal?"  

[Jump Einatz]

Zack's solution for Helena's problem was good enough for Salieri. Helena was safest in a compound of Aura acolytes, and Gurkinn at the least could sense most dangers.

More importantly, unless Helena could give her a clear path to Ratio, Salieri still didn't want to bother with her. One trauma didn't put her back into Sal's good graces, and neither did a two word apology stuck in the shadow of her previous tirades. Bringing her to the Tower was mostly for Zack's sake, and a little bit out of the extra goodwill Salieri denied having in her heart. She really didn't like seeing other people cry.

"The boss around here is Gurkinn, talk to him and he'll set you up," Salieri told Helena. She didn't bother getting the other girl up to speed on the Skarada situation.

"The place I'm meeting Ska is at the cross street leading down to the cove," said Sal, pointing south to the shore of Shalour City. "A wide open space. He could hide backup if he wants, but he can still be sniped from an upper part of the city's strata. Zack, you'll need access to one of the taller buildings on a higher level in the city. Two, maybe three blocks up if you think your Clawitzer can shoot that far. Preferrably inside a room and not from a rooftop, he could have eyes in the sky."

Sal pointed to Ben. "If you put yourself in a building between the two of us, you should be in range to connect us all with Telepathy, right? We can synchronize our attack that way, and you can suss out backup he might have close by."

She released Durendal, who stood straight and alert when he saw how many people he was in the company of. "Ska's going to have Prou walk over to me with the Dex and her Pokéball. Dune's my fastest, so I'll have him walk over with the stone. As soon as Prou's ball is in my hands, Zack, you can take your shot at Ska if he starts something. And if he leaves on his airship without picking a fight, good ******** riddance."

Dune nodded. This was his first time hearing about the specifics, and they gave him some way to be helpful, which was always nice. "Ska will pull something for sure, Prou is too powerful an asset for him to just give up like that." Sal put her hands on her hips and shook her head. "...this isn't a good plan, but it's all I've got. So if you wanna back out, I get it. But I'm doing this no matter what."

She reached into her belt bag and pulled out the packed file that Juliet had given her. "This is everything we need to know about Skarada and his pirates. The schematics of his ships, wanted posters of some of his top dudes, a glimpse at some of their Pokémon rosters. And backstory, if you were curious."

Sal held up the one sheet detailing Skarada's military participation. "Ska and most of his pirates were on the frontlines when Kalos invaded Orre years back. They lost a lot, and they hate this place. Erin, Ska's girlfriend, is the most likely to hold a grudge. I think they might be after more than just the Stone. Could be after blood. Speaking of..."

Sal tossed the file over to Ben and Zack for one of them to catch, then looked at Zack. "Did you get the Sablenite back?" she asked him, holding out a hand in anticipation.  

[Spinne Biss]

"Be careful," Helena said before she gave the trio their space to fight pirates.  

[Marsuru]

Zack caught the file and slotted into his backpack in one smooth motion. Where the hell did Salieri get something like this? A dossier is far too much like homework for her to have put together herself, but that was a can of worms he ought to open in private. Instead he reached into his pocket and produced the Sablenite, pale and sparkling in the sun.

'Gurkinn doesn't want it if Ska wants it. Here,' he said, tossing it over to Salieri. He frowned when Helena wished them luck. It was suspiciously reasonable of her. He went over. 'When this is finished, we can talk. Good?'  

[Klarp Glornharm]

Ben put his hand down when Zack caught the file first. So they were apparently doing real research now, then...

"That means Manny will be less reliable keeping an eye out for his backup. But we'll be more blended in too." Except the whole sniper thing. That might be a dead giveaway if one of Skar's men decided to look in the building.

"It's about as good a plan as we can get on short notice, I guess. Zack has a teleport Pokemon, so combined with Manny's we can have Pokemon on the ground about as fast as he can."

Ben nodded, as if this were probably also in her calculations. "You really thought this through Sal. Better than what I could have come up with."  

[Jump Einatz]

"Never go in unprepared," said Sal, smirking proudly at Ben's compliment. She plotted her various escapades carefully, at least when she had the time. "But don't knock yourself, you would've schemed up something fine."

She stood up, feet planted firmly on Banksy's shell as she caught the Sablenite. All this trouble for a shiny rock. She could've sworn Arnaud had a similar one in his study. It was a paperweight. "The sandbar goes away in an hour and a half, so I'll be out of here before then. Zack, get some target practice in, we wanna make sure we don't kill Ska. Can't pump him for info if he's dead. Ben, I don't know, keep doing what you're doing. Any questions? Concerns?"  

[Spinne Biss]

Helena pulled the scizorite from her bag when she saw the Sablenite. What did the stones even do.

"Yeah," she said to Zack. "sounds good."  

[Marsuru]

'We've all got a job to do, all that's left is to get it done. Let's not waste any time,' Zack said. He caught Salieri's eye and nodded his head to the side, which is universal body language for: "Hey I need to have a word in private so make your excuses and come over here."

Once they were alone he had a dramatic revelation of his own to reveal.  

[Jump Einatz]

Salieri caught Zack's look, and understood the gesture. For whatever reason, Zack had something he didn't want to say in front of the others. Salieri didn't like to compartmentalize, but she'd hear what he had to say in private.

"I, uh, gotta go stand over there." She hopped off of Banksy and walked away, closer to a different building and out of earshot from in front of the Tower. Banksy decided to stay put. Salieri waited for Zack to join her.

Tower Of Mastery - Like Twenty Feet From The Tower

"What's up?"  

[Marsuru]

'Me too,' Zack said. 'You kids play nice now.'

Tower Of Mastery - Like Twenty Three Feet From The Tower

'Ska's not the only one with a prisoner,' Zack said once he was out of earshot of the others. 'Gurkinn has one of Ska's crew chained up in the basement. Apparently he was here looking for the Sablenite, which is why Gurkinn wanted me to get it out of here. Does this change anything?'