ohmyarceus | JULY - AUGUST TEST DRIVE MEME

Oh hell. This is not what Steven expected when he'd come down into the underground base to turn in his quota, not at all. Especially not a guy this tall and his half-naked screaming like an angry sharpedo is chasing after him.

He sets down his briefcase and holds his hands up in front of him in a calming gesture, trying to make his voice as soothing as possible.

"Hey," he says, calmly but firmly. "Hey. It's okay. Really. Nobody's going to hurt you here. You're not in any danger." And then, making a guess as to what might be the problem, "Did you just wake up in an empty dorm room with nothing but a note and a pokeball?"

"That's what they all say! No danger until there is danger, and then things are all...all danger-y!" He's absolutely far too wound up for the situation. "You expect me to just relax when I've got no idea where I am, where I've been taken,--" Odds he actually read the note: bad, "--how do I know you're not with--" He cuts off rather abruptly and then starts frantically patting his butt, right around the tailbone. "It's...it's gone!"

"What's gone?" Steven asks, frowning. "My God, did you have a tail before they turned you human?"

One of his hands leaves the so-called calming gesture so that it can pinch the bridge of his nose.

"Okay," he says. "Okay. It's like this. Sometimes people get kidnapped from their own worlds by a space llama god and get dumped here, in the wold of Pokemon. Most of them end up at the fake mom's house, but sometimes we end up dumped here specifically and get press-ganged into Team Rocket while we sleep. But it's not as bad as it seems because after our week of training hell, they release us back into the wild and as long as we steal something for them every other week, we get a stipend and our travel expenses paid."

Edited 2020-07-15 04:56 (UTC)

"No," Jules scoffs like that's a stupid idea, "I was human and then they turned me into a thing with a tail and now I'm...no, I don't think it fell off again...I'm something that doesn't have one!" Look, he's had a rough life, there have been a lot of recent changes, he's not adjusting well, and now there are more changes and he's a little done with everything, thank you.

And no, no, that explanation does very little to calm Jules. "KIDNAPPED?" Really, it's impressive that he can manage that much volume and that high a pitch. "Not again!"

Oh. Oh fuck. Steven might be going out on a limb here, but the space llama god had kidnapped people from his world before and if the shoe fit...

"Yeah," says Steven tiredly. "It's my second time too. The people who kidnapped you before, they wouldn't have been the Gentry, would they?"

There's a visible flinch at the word 'Gentry.' "Y-yeah," Jules says, nodding uncertainly. "That's them, alright." He's at least standing up now, the full impact of the height and scrawniness on display. "But you, uh, look normal." What is happening? "Things aren't supposed to...I mean, they don't get normal for us, there's like a new normal and then that normal becomes normal, but there's no normal normal..."

"You do too," Steven points out. "Well, except for being seven foot tall. You look human, is what I mean, because that's what happens to us when we come here. We become human again. C'mon. They give the newbies an hour alone in the dorm room before they hustle you off for training. Let's go back in and I'll explain things to you."

He puts a hand on Jules' shoulder, encouraging him to turn around.

"My name's Steven," he says softly, almost gently. "I'm a very junior member of Autumn's court in the freehold of San Diego. What about you?"

"Oh, the height thing isn't even from my first go through in Faerie," Jules says almost absently, "that was from an. Um. Incident with some hobgoblins." He shudders. "I'm Jules. Winter Court out of Houston, and I'm. Uh. Kind of the second-in-command there? For the Court, I mean, not Houston. Someone's probably gonna come looking for me." There's a bit of a groan there.

Steven's first thought is that Houston must have a pretty pathetic Winter Court if this screaming weirdo is second-in-command... but maybe it's as much of a small-m mask as Nice Steven or Gentle Hythlodaeus and the guy has hidden depths. He makes a note to himself that Jules is not to be dismissed, no matter how tempting it is.

"Eh. Hobgoblins," he says with an airy wave of his hand that isn't guiding Jules back into the room with him. "And-- they may look for you, but they're not likely to find you. There's no Hedge between this world and our own. Right now we're basically a freehold of three: you, me, and Tyler, who's Summer Court out of Melbourne," He's 99% sure it's Melbourne and not Perth or Victoria or some other Australian city that's not Sydney. "... which I guess makes me the de facto Autumn King of Goldenrod. Huh. Not that that matters, since it's still Tyler's season anyway."

He shakes his head, even as he shuts the door behind them.

"Right," he says, now that no one can overhear them. "I guess the first thing is... does the word 'Pokemon' mean anything to you?"

Funny, the rest of Jules's freehold has come to much the same conclusions--it's just that Jules insists that nothing is ever his fault, honest. This is all really a lot to take in, but he mentally files away the information that there's yet another changeling (ex-changeling?) here.. "Monarchy's not all it's cracked up to be, believe me. Things can get kinda. Fatal." There's a sigh. "Please tell me it's at least not as hot here as Houston in the summer, holy crap, it's the worst." He sighs. "And if we're humans again, I'm gonna sweat again, I hate sweating..."

Jules gives Steven a look that suggests he thinks Steven's just screwing with him now. "Like the Gameboy game?"

"Pory!" Look, this Porygon's been sitting there back in that room very patiently processing its new idiot partner. It's going to try this introduction thing again.

There's a yelp, and Jules instinctively jumps onto the nightstand.

How is he not even tipping that thing over? What the hell?

"It's not as bad as Houston, probably," Steven says. "But it can get as cold as hell in the winters, so I'm warning you right now. It snows here, ugh." He mimes an exaggerated shudder. "Anyway. That's-- that's the thing. I missed out on playing it, because I was busy with Magic the Gathering back when Pokemon was cool with little kids, so I had to get filled in later, but the gist is this: Basically, we're-- Well. We're stuck inside a Pokemon game. As members of Team Rocket. Congratulations, Jules, you've just met your new starter."

Look, when you've got as much experience seeking solace in the height of random parts of your surroundings as he does, this sort of thing just happens.

"I didn't play it much, just kind of messed with exploiting all the glitches and lost interest..." He trails off there, listening to the rest of the explanation. There's a loud groan. "Team Rocket? But I don't wanna go back to jail!"

"And if you aren't stupid, you won't," Steven promises him. "I've worked for Team Rocket for months and I've never been arrested. You just need to know when to run—and invest in a Pokemon with teleport." He eyes the Porygon. "We'll get you the TM for him and bill it to the team. You can actually get Team Rocket to pay for a lot if you're clever about how you bill then."

Expecting Jules not to be stupid is expecting a lot, just look at him there on that nightstand. "What, like hiding line items in the budget, that sort of thing?" Jules winces. "Do you have to go out and steal things? I mean, I'm." He pauses and tries to decide how delicately he wants to phrase things. "I'm gonna be better behind a keyboard, let me put it that way." He glances at the Porygon. "That guy's digital, right? He can help."

"Get a full time position at the base and you don't have to worry about your quota," Steven assures him. "Some of them are with computers. I can talk to people for you. But yeah, if you're a hacker, we could definitely use that. We'll find you a Rotom too, maybe, at some point—I know Tyler likes to use them."

Hades too, but he wanted to keep Jules and Hades separate as long as he could.

"And it's more like creative justification on how said thing will help you do crime. I've been able to get a lot of the newbies new clothing that way, with the excuse they'll need something for plainclothes missions." He looks Jules over. "You, though, we'll probably have to take to Garak."

He hesitates for a moment before asking, delicately, "So, Lurkglider?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm a hacker. I do the fake IDs and stuff for the freehold." He manages to keep himself sounding humble there; he's a damn good hacker and he knows it. He doesn't even bat an eye at the clothes thing; he's heard enough variations on the theme after his growth spurt. It happens.

He freezes there, startled. "Uh. Yeah." There's a pause. "...is it that obvious?" Another pause. "I'm. Um. What are...were? You?"

"Mostly because of the perching," Steven admits. "And I'm a Leechfinger. Which means as Darklings we outnumber Tyler two to one, hah."

"Ahhh, the perching. Yeah. I. Do that." He's getting off the nightstand now. "Old habits die hard, I guess." He grins. "There's something to be said for a Darkling club, I guess."

Steven grins back. "We can meet at night, when no one else is awake."

He's quiet for a moment before he adds, "So. While everyone who gets taken to this world is made human, there is a guy on the team who's... he's not actually True Fae, but he's... got that kind of attitude. His name is— well, it's not really 'Solus,' that's the guy whose identity he stole, but that's what he calls himself and you're going to want to avoid him whenever possible, just because he's a walking reminder of being back there. Literally everyone else on the team is good people, though. Criminals, but good people."

"Being awake during the day's overrated, anyway," Jules says. "That's about how I was before anything happened, anyway. Once registered for an 8 AM class on accident and I had to hack the school's system just to get myself permitted into another class." Problem solving! Hooray.

He goes real pale at the whole identity stealing description. "Well, mostly good people sounds alright."

Steven laughs. "I was better at being awake in the morning before Arcadia," he says, "but I always hated eight in the morning classes too. My first job here, they had me on eight-to-noon at the receptions desk. It was pretty wretched. I'm so glad I got promoted to the newsroom for the noon-to-six shift."

"Do they have any jobs that just let me stay behind a computer while downing Red Bulls?" Jules's eyes suddenly go wide. "Do...do they have Red Bulls here?" There is genuine alarm in his voice.

"Red Tauros, but it's more or less the same," Steven says. "And yes, actually. There's a whole list of jobs you can do and what rank you need to be. I think as a grunt you're allowed to do tech maintenance, data collection, and data entry—all of which you can do full time, so you don't have to worry about the quota."

Jules is already making mental plans on how to automate the hell out of tech maintenance and data collection and fart off doing his own thing while his software does most of the work. "That doesn't sound too bad, I guess."

"Tyler does it," Steven says, "and he seems to like it well enough. The data collection side of it, I mean."

JULY - AUGUST TEST DRIVE MEME

Rocket Hideout

I should probably be sorry

don't be; he is a bad man and he deserves this headache.

good for them both, then

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