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“Ugh, I hate Control Center duty.”
The dusty, wet scent of the control center underneath Labradorra and Calcenon always gives me the worst headaches. I don’t know if it’s the weird cave surrounding us, the sound of the blasts from the PULSE, or something else entirely… something mysterious and eerie, something coming to consume us all…
That, or I’m just horribly bored. Kinda leaning towards that right now.
At least I have Aster here to keep me company. As much as he drives me crazy sometimes, I’ll admit he’s nice to have around.
“I mean, it could always be worse, right?” He says. “We could be jumping across rooftops looking for a dead body again, or walking around the outskirts in the freezing cold like Kenan.”
“I would genuinely prefer either of those to whatever… this is.” I gesture to the blinking screens and gadgets around us, “I get that keeping an eye on the PULSE is important, but at least give us a TV or something. Like- what does this remote even do?” Clicking it a few times does nothing but make noise, “It's clearly not connected to anything, is it just some toy to keep us occupied?”
“Hey, that remote is fun to mess with! That said, a working TV would be nice… At least our Lycanroc are having fun though, right?”
Over in the corner of the room, my Lycanroc keeps tossing a ball against the wall for Aster's to chase after. Each thunk as it hits the wall is accompanied by scratching that echoes throughout the room– and my brain.
“Y’know, Aster, I get that at this point, I’m only really here for the ride, but those new recruits are fully capable of doing this over us! One of them has only been here for like, what, 3 weeks? And she’s somehow already taken over Sirius’ position despite sleeping half the time. I may not care for the job anymore, but at least don’t give us grunt work-”
“Aster!” The blaring, static-y voice of the Commander blasting out of Aster’s radio pierces my eardrums, “You’re up for patrol duty; get suited up and get scouting!”
“Oh, come on!” I throw my hands up. You’ve got to be kidding me-
“Wow, that timing is… unfortunate. I’d swap with you, but Sirius banned me from messing with the PULSE monitors.”
“He doesn’t have to know…”
“You and I both know he’d find out very quickly. Besides, he’s the boss- well, sorta the boss- and orders are orders. Sorry, Eclipse… c’mon Lycanroc, let’s– oof!” Aster just walked right into… sigh, the green menace himself.
“Hey, watch it, stupid. Don’t you know I’m your superior?” He snaps.
“Oh, uh- sorry sir, I’ll be on my way.” Aster, don’t call him sir… he gets taken off guard like that way too easily. Sevilla’s barely a superior, and even then– he’s younger than both of us.
“Yeah, you better be.” His gaze almost immediately diverts over to me, “Oh, you’re familiar… haven’t I beaten you once or twice before?”
“I-”
“Actually, I don’t care; that doesn’t narrow it down anyway.” He waves a hand dismissively. This little shit- I swear if I could roll my eyes any further back I might see my brain. Whatever. He may be my superior, but I have no desire to interact with him; I refuse to feed his already self-inflated ego.
“Did you miss what I said to your buddy back there? I’m your superior. A commanding officer. Does, ‘I say jump, you ask how high’ ring a bell? Hello?”
Nope. Not doing it.
“You’re really getting on my nerves, you know that?” He rolls his eyes.
I could say the same. I’m staring into space here and doing nothing still feels like a better idea than interacting with him.
“Come on, don’t even wanna talk a little-”
“Oh, no way, this is way too funny.” Oh, no. “If it isn’t little Sevilla! I didn’t realize we were taking in the Gym Leader rejects now.” Why does Blake have to be here, too? One of him was already bad enough, and now I have to deal with two at once!?
Just don’t get involved, Caitlyn, it’s not worth it. There are better ways to spend your already pointlessly wasted time. Like banging my head against a wall.
“Oh, you’re one to talk, Blake. Last I checked, you play understudy to some washed up backwoods model in the middle of nowhere- pretty damn embarrassing.” I need an excuse to get away from here.
“Krrrsh, You want me outside, Commander?” I say into the mic. “Yes, sir, on my way. Sorry you two, I need to do, uh… bye.” I move my eyes from Lycanroc to the doorway, signaling him to move towards me. I don’t care if Sirius goes off on me for leaving my post, anything he can throw at me sounds better than this.
“That’s all in the past, I dropped that lame-ass spot as soon as I could- took the better gig- what’s your excuse? Got tired of your key role as the noob-in-chief around Onyx?
“...Decidueye, wanna do some target practice?” As I get close to the door, Fern’s Decidueye fades out of the shadows behind him and starts to take aim at Blake, who’s… right in front of me.
“Ayie!”
“WAH- Hey, watch it! I’ve only got a few of these hoodies, and you almost took me out with it!” Stupid green-haired dolt almost used me as collateral, I only just managed to duck out of the way, I didn’t want to be involved, I didn’t even want to be here–
“Oh, so we’re having some real fun now, eh, kid?! Sandslash, cool him down a bit, yeah?”
“Sssslash!” Icicle spears launch right into the wall and multiple pieces of machinery, just narrowly missing Fern.
“Okay, so I guess I’m just not here right now to you guys, am I?” It’s like I’m talking to multicolored brick walls here.
“Dee! Dee! Eye!” Three arrows at once?? Is this dude just trying to kill Blake outright?
“Stop firing, you maniac!” I only managed to dodge the two that came towards me, but where'd the third- “Lycanroc!”
“Ly…” Looks like he just got clipped… my poor boy…
“Okay, that's enough. Now, I’m pissed. Lycanroc, Mud Sport. Both of them.”
“Lyca!” He pushes both of his paws into an open spot of the wall with no paneling, grabbing two chunks of mud from the mountainside, tossing both in the air and winding up like a pitcher as each comes back down, “-Rock!”
“Hey, watch the hair!”
“Pbbth- In my mouth-”
“Are you two gonna actually listen and stop destroying everything now?” They’re just… staring at me.
That might have been a bad idea.
…
Are they gonna say anything, or…
“LOL! You’ve got guts, dude.” Blake turns back, looking at me, “If anyone else did that, I’d be pissed off like no other, but that was pretty funny.” He barely manages to hold back a snicker. “Especially when you gave Fern a snack like that- peak.”
“What’s your problem?” Fern spits dirt out of his mouth.“Bleck- was that a crystal?!”
“You’re the noob around here, had to make sure you weren’t some chump that got lucky, but you’ve got guts, kid!” Blake walks over to Fern, slapping him on the back, “I think this Meteor gig might be kinda fun. Let’s get out of here.”
What.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?! You just trashed this place!”
“We’re on a different level than you, there’s better things for us to do than hang around the chumps.” Oh, that spiky blue ice cube did >notjust say that. What’s around here… gotta get him before the door shuts- Oh, the remote!
“Hey! I’m not a maid! Get back here and clean up your mess, you- Urgh!” That… was not my best throw. That might miss Blake- wait, is that-
“I’m back, Eclipse! Oh, what happened- Ow!” The remote hits Aster square on the side of the head, changing the input on the PULSE monitor. Oops, sorry, Aster…
“Huh? So I guess that’s what that was for?”