Pokémon: Forever Wounded

Clubroom life

Rosie untied the man, made him stand up, and pushed him. 
"Run along now." 

The man ran for his life away. Just as he was the right distance away towards the door, she got out her pistol, and blew his brains out. Still got it. Perfect timing. 

Rosie lit a cigarette, questioning her own motives. She hated all of this. Everything. Taking over her father's company, absolutely everything.  

She stared into a mirror in the room, and her father stared back. She felt her legs telling her to move. Her heart clenching. Her rage brewing. She reached for her glasses and cast them to the floor. She grabbed the bat from the floor, and by instinct alone, a thousand silver shards screamed with her as the bat smashed it. Shard into shard, shard into dust, dust into dust.

Who knew how far it went?

She went outside, took out a cigarette, lit it, and inhaled. Breathing in the smoke. The fire burnt away as the nicotine coursed through her. She sighed out smoke that vanished into the air. Into the air of the grey and traumatised Wyndon. They'd suffered too much too recently. There was no break from all this suffering. Since 2010 it had just been a constant stream of violence, in or outside of war.  She was going to change that. That was why she took her loathsome late father's job. All these things she'd done. All the things she regretted. All the things she once regretted but had become desensitised to.  It had to be worth it, right?

She didn't even have enough time to be able to wallow in her thoughts because of some fuckwit reporter.

"Ms Rose, could I take your statement on the Iron Cult insurgency?" 

"No." 

"No? But, this is a big story, what you say here will impac-" 

She fumbled a switchblade between her hands as he talked before interrupting him.

"If you want a story, I'll give you one. How does 'Rosie Rose castrates nosy journalist' sound? I've shot people for less." She didn't know if she was lying about that last part, but really wanted this fuckwit reporter to leave her the hell alone.

She never saw his face again.

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Prina scoffed as Kieran walked past her. Only what Rootsie had told her to do stopped her from making a snarky comment or something that she knew would make Kieran uncomfortable. Rory was staring her down, to no effect. Prina didn't attend the League Club, but had been told to wait for someone outside of it. 

Kieran opened the clubroom door, and everyone's head turned, most of them smiling. It gave a sense of overwhelm.

Aurora grinned as Kieran walked towards her. 

"Onion back in the clubroom?" she said, dragging out the 'o' sound.

"Yeah, but I'm goin' to Kitakami pretty soon."

"D'awwww-" Rory said with feigned dissapointment, "when will onionhead be back?"

"I don't know, I guess I'll be back at-"

Rory seemed very irritated that Kieran no longer found her nickname for him irritating. She adjusted her beanie.

"Rory, honestly, I like it." Kieran fiddled with his hair a bit.

"It was funnier when you got angy," Rory said in her Tails-esque voice, "want me to do my Tails impression?"

"Isn't that just your normal voice?"

Kieran chuckled. The two had been good friends since they had met at the exchange trip. When Kieran was- he didn't tend to dwell on that. While they kind of knew each other during the Teal Mask trip. Rory pouted, "I do not sound like him!"

"Yes you do!" Kieran grinned. It was an effort, a manual effort to 'match Rory's energy.' Rory had ADHD and Autism, just like he did, but in a... different way. She was a lot more... Rory. Rory was Rory was Rory was the best way to describe the Rory level of Rory. She was a lot more chaotic, and a lot more energetic, and to be frank, until Rory made the Blueberry trip, Kieran was afraid of her. He had learned not to fear her, and now, he was to the point where he was confused exactly as to why he was ever scared of Aurora Sycamore.

Across on the other couch, Drayton was pretending to read a textbook, and was in fact, on his phone, despite the fact that not a single person cared if he was on his phone or not because this was the clubroom, and let's be frank here, Drayton Draydensen practically lived there. He was bored out of his mind, and his eyes wandered across the clubroom. Something to do, something to do, something to do.

Meanwhile, a boy sat in the other couch, around Kieran's age, seventeen, give or take. He was blasting Splatoon music through his noise cancelling headphones. He adjusted his glasses, as he held his switch, looking down on it. Leaning over like this hurt him a bit because of the binder,  but if he held it up too much then it hurt his arms. He got killed again, and groaned. If he had waited to adjust his glasses- whatever. His teal octoling continued to splatter ink, as the music blasted through his head. It was Kaiven's personal ambition to learn squid so he could understand the lyrics. For now, he could only appreciate the melodic excellence.

He sighed, and put the switch down just to sort of appreciate the music. 

'Bingo,' Drayton thought to himself, 'perfect.'

 He shuffled his feet, quietly. Kaiven was staring at the roof, so that meant that he couldn't see him coming. Kaiven sort of bobbed his head a bit to the music. It was so loud Drayton could hear it faintly from the other side of the room. He tiptoed closer and closer. No one was paying him any mind, which was all for the better, since they didn't seem to like his hilarious jokes. His heart almost skipped a beat when Kaiven moved over a bit, but he still couldn't see him. Kaiven was resting the back of his neck, looking at the ceiling, facing up, vocalising the words.  Drayton saw him brush his purple hair, and waited for him to finish before taking another close step. Slow and steady. Yeah, that does it. Kaiven still didn't see him when he was one step away from stepping on his shoes. Drayton reached out, and took the headphones, reaching for the left one, reaching around so he wouldn't see Drayton out the corner of his eye,  and taking it off.

Kaiven first noticed that the music stopped playing. Then he noticed that there was nothing on his ear. Then he saw Drayton. He was angry. He did what any sane (mentally unstable) person would do in that situation. He reached in his pocket, and felt some cold metal. He took it out quickly, and held it out. Using his thumb and finger, flicked the sharp part, in an instant, he had a blade, and he held it.

"Heh, Kaiven what you listening to- Oh my God Kaiven, what the fuck is that a switchblade!?"

Kaiven stared at him, his hand shaking. A messy brown-haired person around Kaiven's age, with large glasses, and wearing a dark blue jumper, was the only person who even paid attention to what was happening. 

"Wow, Kaiven, let's see if it works! Let's test it!" He said, in-between eating mac and cheese he had 'borrowed' from the cafeteria, "let's see if it works, or else we might have to ask for a refund." 

Drayton turned to him, "who the fuck are you?" he snarled.

Caelum shrugged, "I dunno." He said it in a way that made the words sound more like a grunt than a sentence, "oh, here, I have a badge. It says," he read out the badge on his jumper, 'your. worst. nightmare.' 

Kaiven held the blade out forward, "give me my headphones back you raggedy dragon fuckboy." 

"Fine!" Drayton sighed, "you are insufferable." 

Kaiven sat down and got back to what he was doing. Caelum continued to eat the Mac and Cheese that he may or may not have paid for.

Drayton just listened in on the conversation between Amarys and Lacey.

"Acknowledged. I will remain in the school facilities and attempt to find the truth while you make sure Kieran is safe and secure in Kitakami."

"Yeah," Lacey sighed, "keep out of trouble, but to try to understand what's going wrong. It would be a darn shame if something went wrong and we couldn't send Kieran back." Lacey again refrained from swearing as she sipped her tea. She glanced over at Drayton, "he never learns", she whispered while rolling her eyes, "he never learns."