IC CONTACT

[blueser]

"Hello... Whatever... Don't worry about me. I'm doing peachy over here! I was just looking for something to do! Wanna battle me again?"

[telepathy | Pidgeot-mail]

Comments

[blueser]

Dream on, no way I'm scared to battle you.

Hmph, probably because Kanto trainers actually know how to battle. [He sure sounds awfully, smugly proud. Though. He wonders who the trainers were running it...] I wonder... Anyone I know...? Did you battle them?

[Luckily for Guzma, Blue doesn't get the meaning behind his slip up, and just assumes it's a cultural thing.] ...Well, I guess. I like it fine- I don't have any problem with teaching junior trainers or anything like that.

But I get sick of sitting around in one place. I like traveling better, I think... Just seeing the same things over and over gets stale.

[golisolation]

Not scared, yet you don't wanna take on Alolan trainers 'cos they might be like your boy. The trainer you ain't beat yet, huh?

[There's a laugh that goes through the line.]

Yeah, you're a shining example of one, huh? But, yeah I've battled 'em. Beat 'em too. Ain't no thang. Can't remember their names though, so tough luck!

[Guzma's truly the stupidest idiot. Guzma's glad he doesn't know shit about Alola, not that he's actually sensitive about it anymore. At least, not as much. It's still a let down, something he thinks about when he's alone sometimes. An opportunity he'll never have, an experience he'll never live. What it had meant to him, and what it became once it was denied him. Again, and again...]

...How does that all work, huh? Gym leaders. Do you age out of it, or?

[blueser]

Puh-lease.

[Stupid useless oniichan. Oh well, Blue figures it probably doesn't matter... It's not like he knows every trainer in Kanto. What's the chances he knows them, anyway?]

[Guzma's question surprises him a little, but he's happy to answer.]

Age out...? No, the Leader is the Leader until they decide to retire. They're all sort of different, though. Some of them have been handed down within a particular family for generations, like Fuchsia City's Gym; others just get appointed to someone by the League, if the previous Leader retires without a protegé or something to take it over. Like when I took Viridian. In Saffron City there were two Gyms, until one beat out the other for the League certification.

[Blue pauses thoughtfully, Guzma's question making him curious.] --Do you gotta be a certain age to be a Leader or Captain or whatever?

[golisolation]

[There's a long silence on Guzma's end. He listens, but there's a strange sort of feeling that feeds through the line. Not quite envy, but there's a certain... pang of something. Distance, yet niggling.

Had Alola... had the Trial Captain positions been something like that, then maybe he wouldn't have felt like he did when he didn't get picked. He wouldn't have felt like it was a time crunch to prove himself, like time and hope was slipping through his fingers like sand. Maybe he wouldn't have done half the stupid shit he did.

But there's no point to dwell. No point to be envious of a system that might not have failed him, when it wouldn't change anything. The time had passed, the damage was done, and he's where he is now. The feeling doesn't leave, and maybe it intensifies a little as he answers Blue's question.]

Yeah, you gotta be at least eleven to take on the Island Challenge, which is the Alola's way of recognizing new trainers as the real deal. Once you pass that, you can qualify as a Captain. Don't mean you'll be picked though, no matter how qualified you might be.

[There's a slight edge to how he says it. He's less beat up about it, but it still stings sometimes.]

Anyway, once you're twenty you can't be one no more. The Kahuna for that island then picks a new one, but there's been times when the Captains picked the next one. That's a bit rarer.

So, if you got eyes on the position, but one don't open up before you turn twenty, tough luck, kid! If it does, then you might not get picked anyway. You could spend almost a decade tryin' to get yourself into the position, and all that work is for fuckin' nothing!

[He's... rambling. Maybe he's just tired, and his head is swimming, and maybe he's feeling a little more vulnerable right now. They've been chatting for a while, and he might not be passing out every 20 minutes because of his weariness, but when he's awake long enough, he gets... rambly. His walls lower a little. And with this being all telepathy? Yeah. Yeah.]

[blueser]

[Blue listens, and frowns to himself, and between that nagging (familiar) bitterness, he can already see where this is going. He'd question why the position is set up the way it is- why only those ages? What was the purpose of all of that??]

[...But it didn't really matter. That wasn't why they were talking about it, anyway. Not anymore...]

[He doesn't really know what to say, but he doesn't want to say the wrong thing for once, so he just doesn't- he just thinks about the familiar sensations coming across the crystal, his turn to feel a strange familiarity.]

[golisolation]

—It's all such taurusshit... shit needs changing, but that's up to the Kahuna and the Tapu, not the people it actually effects, yo.

[It's then he realizes he's maybe... overshared a bit. That information, while technically answered Blue, came from a place way too personal. There's a flash of heat from embarrassment through the line, dipped in heavy awkwardness.]

...Anyway. As you can see, shit's pretty different.

[blueser]

The Tapu...?

[Blue doesn't quite understand how everything in Alola works- the Kahuna are above the Captains, and the Tapu are...]

Aren't those the legendaries in the Alola region? ...They commune with people that much?

[What a strange idea, coming from a region where the legendaries could hardly be proven to exist, much less appear to humans regularly...]

[golisolation]

[Talking about the Tapu is a decent enough segue. He's not so mad at them, as he was before, and even less so with them as he was with the traditions in general. After all, the people perpetuated those, even if they were to honor the Tapu.]

Yeah, they're the legendary of each island, they choose their Kahuna to hold out the traditions of Alola. They're pretty fleeting, but they show up to those they deem worthy, or so wretched that they take care of them themselves.

[The implication is pretty obvious there.]

Before Nanu was chosen as a Kahuna, there was one before him. Tapu Bulu gave that guy an early retirement, if you get me.

[Guzma was there for that. Saw the wrath of the Tapu himself. He was following that Kahuna around with all those other misfits, and they pissed off Bulu something fierce. But from the ashes of that old group rose Team Skull with Guzma at the helm. A tragic opportunity, and Guzma has ever been the opportunist.]

[blueser]

Things must get pretty bad around there if the local guardians have to clean up. [He sounds more surprised than smug about it. What the heck were people doing that was so bad, the legendaries had to take care of it...?]

[Then again, he had known Nanu was a kahuna or whatever, but to hear he had a direct line to a legendary was surprising. What the heck was a guy like that picked for?] Musta been pretty bad if a guy like him was chosen after that...

The birds don't mess in human business at all... Well, I'm not the one to ask about them.

[Dredging up just a small taste of that old, stewing bitterness again.]

[golisolation]

It ain't too common of a thing. But we're kinda bound by the will of the Tapu. Just how it is.

[Unfortunately, is what he doesn't quite add. Even he was bound by it, a realization he made a long time ago, but one he didn't like much. He didn't like being bound, or restrained, yet he seemingly kept finding himself with a yoke around his neck more often than not.

He catches that bit, and there's a bristle. He'll ask about those birds in a moment, he's gotta set Blue straight about Nanu first.]

What you got against Nanu, huh? He's a little rough and can be a bit of an ass, I'll give ya that. But! He's a decent fuckin' dude. Way better than the last Kahuna. Keep your mouth shut on shit you don't know nothing about, kid.

[Don't you talk shit on his mentor, Blue!]

[blueser]

[Speaking of bristling]

Oh yeah? Well I don't like adults who talk crap 'bout stuff they don't know about either, so we're even.

[GUZ]

[golisolation]

What the hell you talking about?

[He talks shit on all sorts of things, gotta be a little more specific! There's just so much shit talk in his day to day.]

[blueser]

He just pissed me off. It's none of your business.

[Don't worry Guzma, you talk so much he feels like he's finally building up an immunity to it; Nanu's a different story. Although after the last week, he doesn't know how he feels...]

[golisolation]

Oh.

[True to form, he thought that was about him. There's the emotional equivalent of a shrug.]

Nanu's got his reasons for being how he is. Don't change the good he does, but if you just wanna be petty, there's no helping you.

[blueser]

Yeah, so much good he's doing, a cop sitting on his Feebas while people like you slaughter innocent monsters.

[Doesn't need to be helped, thanks! Doing just fine without blood on his hands.]

Whatever, running in front'a bullets, that's Red's thing. Keep mounting those bounties, I guess.

[golisolation]

Are you really this dense? He's a cop back in Alola, not here, stupid!

[Dammit, this was going so good. It's hard when you're territorial like Guzma is, and when one of his is getting talked against, he rises to give a beatdown. Even if just verbally. Not that he wants to beat Blue down, not really.]

Look—we ain't ever gonna agree on this shit, so it's pointless to bring it up again and again. You ain't gonna make me suddenly realize your side of it, no matter how many times you act shitty at me, yo. So, drop it.

[blueser]

Yeah, stupid me assuming adults are ever gonna do the right thing, huh??

[Why does he even bother with them? A flash of hot anger hits the feed, before it's dulled into disappointment.]

[He can't stand thinking about those bounties anymore. He can't even stand going to the taskboard anymore, these days...]

[Pointless. Yeah, he's right about that much...]

Forget it.

[golisolation]

Kid, life ain't so simple. I know shit seems like it's black and white, but it ain't.

[He's frustrated too, because this was going so well, and he was feeling... better about things. Actually really enjoying this talk with Blue, but now it's like this...]

How about this. We lay some ground rules. Number one: don't smack talk Nanu, and number two: no talking about the bounties, it does nothing but frustrate us both. I like you kid, but you gotta learn you can't bend people to your ideals, no matter how passionate you are about 'em.

[blueser]

'My ideals'...?

[He sounds a little insulted at that, about to argue that it was only common sense. But after a moment- and framed like that- a very unpleasant realization dawns on him, and he quickly tries to clamp down on the sensation that prickles hot at the back of his neck.]

[It wasn't exactly... his ideals, was it.... But rather something he had always quietly, secretly admired in someone else...]

[For a long time he just stews in a weird mix of quiet anger and strange embarrassment, and he doesn't have anything else to say.]

Quit shoving it in my face, then.

[golisolation]

[Guzma waits. He can be strangely patient at times, particularly when it came to people he cared about. Which, he's slowly just accepting to be the case with Blue. Why him? Who fucking knows, but here they are.

When Blue responds further, it surprises Guzma, to say the least.]

Huh? How the fuck am I shoving it in your face?

[blueser]

[For whatever reason, even though Blue answers that in the most obtuse way possible.]

You didn't squish 'em after all, huh. Those Stingers.

[Despite his grandstanding before...]

[golisolation]

[Guzma is so confused right now.]

What?! Why would I?

[What does that have to do with shoving shit in Blue's face??]

[blueser]

Stupid... You really don't remember? Tch, I guess you had just woken up...

Whatever. I'm done with this crap.

[golisolation]

I never said I'd squish 'em. In fact, I said the opposite. I don't kill the bugs here, so I don't know what the fuck you're gettin' at with this.

Seems like you're just trying to get a rise outta me, but all you're doing is being cagey as fuck and confusing. I don't know what you're trying to accomplish, yo.

[blueser]

Why don't you try opening your ears!

I'm telling you not to taunt me about it anymore!! How about for once you think about what you're saying instead of just spewing stupid shit all the time!?

[Ah... he said a bad word. There's a tiny flush of shame.] ...Sorry.