[Game] Lord Windos' PokeRole Adventure: Celadon City Vandel

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

"Heh heh, so it is one of those kinds of tales. Well, if you don't want to talk about it, I won't force ya. I'm interested in learning what you've been up to all this time, but......*Frown for a moment* well, this conversation isn't about you, eh? Hopefully their will be time to catch up......properly later. *Mumbles*....Hopefully...."

(...)

And so does Taylor, as even with her social ineptitude , she can tell that topic is sore as a Beedrill's sting!
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Weavile escapes her Grapple with relative ease once he puts so effort into it, causing your old partner to pout at the sly feline for a moment. Aww, she wanted to cuddle with her feline friend all throughout her conversation with Reiner. It would have certainly made that task more comfortable by a country mile. Oh well, she'll cope and adapt, as always....

----

"Glad to hear that! Lucy's missed you all too, and would love to see how you're doing. Same with Jeff, 'cause I know he would just love to show off how tough he's gotten over, especially to your Kingdra, heh heh..."

The thief let's out a *Sigh* of relief as you let up, closing her eyes and reclining back into the couch more as she gathered her thoughts and prepared herself for what would be no doubt be long, exhaustive, and uncomfortable explanations, rationales, and recounting of her past exploits. For if there's one thing's she learn about her old partner past and presently, its that he doesn't and wouldn't leave any stones unturned and upended to get the answer he sought unless you tried your damndest to deter him, and with the way he is now.....welp, she can't half arse things, no matter how much she would've like too.

All she can do at this point is come clean the best way she can, and hope that Reiner wouldn't want to feed her a knuckle sandwich by the end, or worse. Oh boy, this was going to suck.

".....Thank you. *Long Beat* .....The main reason I got a cell phone in the first place, despite finding them mostly to be a nuisense, liability, or just plain rubbish, is pretty simple: so that I had a way to quickly get into contact with you, or anyone else that would have seen ya, you doof. *Sighs* Allow me to elaborate...."

"After I rescued Lucy, I spent a few weeks in Goldenrod lying low to be on the safe side, then high tailed in to Mahogany to pick ya, celebrate, and catch up on what the heck I've been doing......but I didn't find you anywhere there. Spent the better part of the a week searching high, low, and in the darkest corners in and around the sleepy little town for you, but all I found was zlitch. Only leads I managed to get a scrounge up and get a strangle hold on was a Kingdra going on a rampage in the lake before it was mysteriously stopped, and you last seen leaving town with some tall bloke, but that lead nowhere pretty fast. Its like you just went *Poof!* *Spreads arms apart* gone, the moment you left Mahogany! Like some Ghost departing to the Netherworld, or Giratina herself spirited you away!"
".....No, I Did Not. I Was Not Even Aware Of My Love At That Time, Unfortunately......"
"*Shakes their head, and sighs* ...First figured you might have been abducted by one of the Elder's secret agents or croonies, perhaps to fuck with you some more for shiggles, but it didn't match up with the info I'd gathered. Plus, I knew that the Elders were already busy as a furious hive of Combees handling and covering up my, heh heh, tour of their oh so secured locals - more on those later, Reiner, so Bewear with me here! -, and trying to figure out who gave them such a well deserved drumming, so they wouldn't have spared you much attention at the time. Plus Plus, I imagined you, Kingdra, and Weavile would have raised Cain and then some if somebody attempted to kidnap you. Probably razed a good portion of Mahogany in the struggle, or at least leave a much more lasting impression among the town folks and Gym than you did, eh?"

"*Takes a deep breath, then continues* ....Once I found all that out, I started scouring Jhoto for you. Started my search in Ecruteak, since I knew your ma's friends and her side of the family lived there so you could have holed up with them, then wound my way across the region when I didn't find you there either, hitting up the places I thought you would be most likely be at since I sure as heck didn't have any leads on ya by that point. *Pauses, and her voice lowers* .....Went about hunting like this for three months, looking into every nook and cranny of every town and city, using every bit and ounce of my talents, my Pokemon's talents, and all the resources I had or could 're-appropriate' as mine own, to find you, your wereabouts, or literally anything about you. Heh.....you can already guess what I found pretty easily, but just for the record let me just come out and say it: Bugger. All."

She ground out those words with deep seated discontent and what felt like despair, giving you a rather miserable grin as she stared at you with self-depreciating amusement, before she hollowly chuckled and resumed her tale.

"Didn't find a single trace of you anywhere in Jhoto. I even double checked the immigration records of gov to see if you had left the region for some odd reason, but again, nothing. By that point, I.....well, I thought you were dead or gone. About the only explanations I had left for your disappearance, since you sure as heck weren't any evidence that spoke to the contrary. Still, I didn't want to give up hope for ya. Couldn't. Not after....not the promise I made to you. *Sighs* ...Sooo I figured it was time for last resorts. Bought a untraceble cell phone off the black market- cost me a pretty Poke, bah... - and started handed out my number to my most trusted sources, with instructions to only phone me if they caught any wind of ya. Then, I made a trip back to Blackthorn, the only city in Jhoto I haven't searched at that point, as that was the very last place I'd expect to find you. You'd have to be.....well, me to get past the Blackthorn Watch Guard and Border Patrol sneakily, and I didn't figure you'd have the skill or resources to get by them yourself without getting caught several times over, to be blunt. More over, I wanted to avoid my 'home town' for a good long while after you know what *Waves a hand around*, so all the more reason to ignore my 'noble beginnings' *Rolls eyes*. If it turned out you were hiding out there, I'd of eaten my cloak and retired as a thief, for a certainly done a crap job of finding you until then."

"Predictably, I found nada of you there, so I decided to pay your folks a visit, for if anyone else could have possibly had a bead on you that I hadn't asked at that point, it would be them. And......*Shrugs* well, you know the rest. Somehow. Curious how exactly you got into contact with your ma that wouldn't have been picked up by me first, but if its a loooong story like you said, it can be saved for later."

"........Anyway, that was that. I couldn't find you. Couldn't keep searching for you either. If there was absolutely nothing about you out where I could find it, then it be fruitless and stupid of me to keep on with it. I ran myself ragged and sick hunting for you - heck, I wasn't even fully recovered from my rescue of Lucy when I started it - and Potions, Medicine, Energy Drinks, and some Pokemon mojo can only go so far keeping a person a-ticking before they keel over. That, and I almost out of Poke by that point after spending most of it on looking for you and personal maintenance, and nobody can't live off an empty wallet unless you're on of them hardcore Survivalist. So.....I had to move on with my life. Rest up, get back to the grind, and......make the most of what I had left, keeping an ear out for ya in the meantime if you turned out to be alive. It killed me to do that, to just give u but.....what else was there for me to do that I already hadn't done?"

Silence. Brooding silence. Suffocatingly brooding silence....

".......Heh heh heh......Imagine my surprise when I checked my message this morning in Fiore, and found out you were not only alive and ticking Celadon, living it up in some cushy hotel, but that you've apparently been wondering where the heck I've for the last few years. Took me a heck of a lot of chain Teleporting to get here ASAP, but I'd sooner take up a life of faith than let globe trotting get in the way of reuniting with ya!"

"Obviously you weren't here when I got here, but your girl Kyubi was, and we......talked. Got caught up on some of the business you've been up she knew about, and man.......wasn't that an eye opener. Sheesh, you still have the worst of the devil's luck after all this time - maybe there is something to that tale of black cats being unlucky.... - and Team Rocket? *Chuckles No wonder I couldn't find you. That organization is tightfisted when it come to information that goes out or in, and nobody knows where their bases are. Otherwise, they'd been paid a visit by the Nation Guard by now, heh heh.... *Nonchalantly shrugs* Don't judge you for joining, by the way. You seemed to have made a good living with them, and it be a bit hypocritical of me to judge them poorly, eh? *Shakes head* ....Just makes me wish I came back to get ya sooner than I did. Would have saved us a lot of grief...."

With that, Taylor concludes her almost excessively long tale, taking another deep breath and huffing it out as she reclined further into her perch. She knew that he was only asked her a simple question, and could have settled for a lesser answer, but she figured she might as well just explain everything that lead up to that decision while she was at it. It would give him all the info he wanted and then some, and he'd know that she just didn't give up on him after discovering he was missing from Mahogany. As a bonus, talking at such length didn't leave him much room to form....less than happy conclusions of his own, and it allowed her to allude to the stuff she now knew about him without being too explicit. Ain't she a smooth talker or what?

After a minute passed, she leaned back up and answered your second question, rattling it off as almost as an aside while lazily gesturing to her face and body.

"Oh, yeah, and my scars. Gottem from a Salamance patrolling the Secret Breeding Grounds. It caught wind of me somehow and mauled me something fierce before I could take care of it. Heh, the scar on my face is the least of the damage it caused, as a matter of fact, and I think it looks pretty cool too, so I don't mind it much at all now. Good thing I packed several Full Restores on me to patch me and my Pokemon up quickly just in case, eh? It didn't prevent the scarring, and I'll be missing my right boob for the rest of my life, *Shrugs* but what can you do about?"

......What?

Well then...

"...that's...quite the story..."

He goes quiet for a minute as he processes that...so, Taylor went through quite a similar situation...she'd only just missed him when she came to look in Mahogany, and only checked Blackthorn as a last resort after combing all of Johto...

Weavile rolls his eyes at Taylor's mention of the black cat supersition.  Him?  Bad luck?  Pfffft, no way.

"...yeah, you could say it's the worst of the devil's luck.  You could also say it wasn't all bad, though.  Kingdra picked up a new trick or two in the last 2 years, and it's been awhile since her last major rampage.  Weavile evolved.  It helped me keep my goals in sight, not lose any sense of purpose or drive.  Waiting around in Mahogany...well, it wasn't exactly easy.  And while there have been things I've found...distasteful about the profession, there are definitely some things that wouldn't have happened were it not for the position I'd taken...both good and bad.  But that's life, I suppose.  I still can't help but wonder, though...why exactly didn't you include me in the plan to save Lucy?  Blackthorn or no, I would have been more than happy to help."  Well, Taylor answered everything except possibly the biggest question Reiner had...and while he's been getting bits and pieces that might hint at why from the conversation so far...well, confirmation isn't usually a bad thing, right?



And after that's answered...

...hang on, now that Reiner looks at the scar again after hearing it was a 'Mence that caused them...

Salamence don't have two claws on each foot.  They have three.  What they have two of, is...well, four, technically...

"...are those...bite marks, Taylor?  As in, the Salamence that sniffed you out...it wasn't a Dragonsong 'Mence, was it?  One with a particularly Strong Jaw?" Reiner's asking mostly out of concern, but also out of curiosity. Why was a Salamence patrolling that area? They're not usually the Dragons that do that job as far as he knows...

EDIT: Oh, and one more thing. Since Weavile would easily be able to pick up that Taylor would be more comfortable with sharing her story if she has a friend to help boost her confidence, he'll at the very least continue to sit next to her so she can continue to stroke him at least. He can be a nice guy if he has to, and if it helps both Taylor and Reiner...well, he can tolerate it for a bit longer. Besides, it's not like it's completely unenjoyable...but he still has to try very hard to resist purring again.