The Fletchling coasted alongside Aiden when he approached the pedestal, searching for gems. He found a small pile before long and knelt down to toss the little shiny things into his bag. His bird landed beside him and glowered at him. "I thought we were here to fight a bitch," Carolina snarled. "Not grab gems like some pansy ass." Aiden was still riding the high of catching his very first pokemon--not to mention seeing his starter kick said pokemon's ass in their very first fight--and so was unaffected by the bird's vulgarity. It was the sort of thing you got numb to after a while.

"I never said we were traveling south to fight anyone," Aiden said cheerily. "Some of those items make fire attacks stronger. That'll help you when you evolve, missy." He leaned over to pat Carolina on the head and she snapped her beak sharply in what he assumed was supposed to be an intimidating display--like a dog snapping its jaws. Carolina severely underestimated Aiden's ability to be charmed by every little thing fire type pokemon (and future fire types) did. "Really, I just want everything he's selling... And that shit don't come cheap." He laughed heartily and pocketed the last of the gems in that spot, then stood up and began looking around the plains again.

With an irritated huff, Carolina stretched her wings and jumped into the air, soaring after him. "Why don't you just fight the man for the crap he's selling instead? It'd be faster than grabbing all these rocks by hand like an Yveltal-damned slave. And you'd be fulfilling your promise by letting me battle."

Aiden looked at her, doing his level best to keep the gleeful smile off his face, because he knew that would only set her off more. (His level best was not good enough to completely hide his joy. After all, once she evolved, he would have two fire types! Two! And he'd only just started as a trainer. The ginger was so damn happy, even Carolina's relentless negativity couldn't bring him down.) "Because that's stealing. Besides, isn't this fun?" He grabbed another gem and held it in his palm, showing it off to the bird. If Carolina's hate-filled glare was capable of burning holes in people, Aiden would've been swiss cheese.

"So your cracker ass is tellin' me I can't fight the fucking gem hoarder?"

"Correct."

"Fine." Carolina gave the area a quick scan and her eyes landed on some turdboy with a Bagon and a Pidgey. Perfect. "How 'bout them?"

When she asked the question, Aiden was already bending down to grab another gem. "Huh?" By the time he realized what she was asking, Carolina was off. (He was her trainer or some shit, sure, but he hadn't technically said no. That was her justification.)

"Hey!" She flew fearlessly towards Sam and his pokemon, slowing to a halt a few feet away from the group, hovering around eye level with the boy. "D'y'all really need three fucking brains working at once to pick up some damned rocks, or can one of ya fight me?"

Behind her, Aiden was walking with great haste after the bird--he didn't want to risk spilling his gems by running, but he also didn't want to be too far behind her. "Sorry," he called out. He was still maybe thirty seconds away--easily long enough for a battle to break out if either of Sam's pokemon were interested.

WORDS → 580
POKEMON → carolina the fletchling
NOTES → wizz • carolina is a jerk & I'm sorry (and I honestly don't care if there's a battle or not, I just want gems. w/e you want to do is fine. she's still technically injured from her battle with Aiden's Tepig so she'll almost definitely lose.) +5 ruby gems

"Anger management classes are for fuckin' cowards who can't--" but before she could tell everyone just what the anger-management-class-taking-cowards couldn't do, Aiden arrived on the scene and cut her off. He was too late to prevent the verbal sparring from happening, but it hadn't progressed too far. "--Carolina, funny running into you out here!" He projected his voice, allowing the little joke to drown whatever pleasantries Carolina had planned on dumping on Sam and company. The joke also derailed Carolina's anger at the lily livereds in front of her and redirected it all at her trainer. The Fletchling turned midair to glare daggers at her trainer, who only beamed fondly at her.

Neither the other trainer nor his pokemon seemed offended; the ginger thanked his lucky stars for that. He had a soft spot for Caroline because, a) the Fletchling was a future fire type and Aiden loved fire types the way sane people loved puppies, and, b) the Fletchling was living proof that Aiden's beloved (and much more mild mannered) starter had a future as a fighter. For all his naivete and whimsy, though, Aiden recognized that not everyone shared those soft spots. In fact, most people didn't.

"Hah, yeah, bad days," he said, laughing half-genuinely (because it was a joke, and this was just how Caroline was) and half-nervously (for pretty much the same reason). He set his bag on the ground and reached out to shake the other trainer's hand. "Nice t'meetcha, Sam. I'm Aiden."

Carolina feigned retching at the display. "I came over here to fight, not make some fuckin' gay ass friends." For clarification, Carolina was not implying Aiden and Sam were gay. She didn't give two hoots about anyone's sex lives, or lack thereof. She was strictly using gay as a pejorative, because she was a Fletchling who embodied the very height of sophistication and class. "C'mon, fucker," which was her not-so-affectionate nickname for Aiden. "There's gotta someone in this fuckin' hellish wasteland of a country who doesn't piss themselves when someone wants to fight."

"Hold on, honey, we just got here, leaving now would be rude!"

"I want to evolve, you little shitstick. I don't care about being rude." Understatement of the century material right there--Aiden almost commented on it, but truthfully, Carolina's biting phrases got easier and easier to ignore with time. There were so many of them that none of the insults had a chance to sink in before another one'd been lobbed at you. Aiden let the latest one roll off his back without so much as flinching.

While Carolina huffed at the rejection, Aiden looked back at Sam and his two pokemon. "Anyway, this cheerful gal is Carolina Reaper. Carolina for short." Was it silly to have a nickname for a nickname? Maybe. Oh well. "She responds to just about anything, though." Pokemon and trainer looked at each other, the former's seething hatred matched emotion-for-emotion by the latter's affection.

A moment later, Aiden broke eye contact with Carolina and glanced down at his bag, which was a little over halfway full with the gems. "Are you guys out here for gems, too? Odd little quest." Aiden had originally hoped the gem hunt would distract Carolina from her desire to fight, since she still wasn't fully recovered from her brawl with Nutmeg. No such luck. But while they were here, he planned on gathering a lot of the peculiar stones.

Instead of addressing her trainer or acknowledging the change in topic, Carolina rounded on Peach, who had just made the unwise decision to carry on talking. Negative energy? Who did this bitch think she was? The infuriated Fletchling looked the other bird over from head to talon. She made no motion to hide how utterly unimpressed she was.

"You remind me of my children, numpty," Carolina spat out. "And I hated my children."

WORDS → 645
POKEMON → carolina the fletchling
NOTES → wizz • I don't care about word count at all, especially not in gem threads, you're fine c: +5 ruby gems (10)

Aiden grinned. They'd be able to handle themselves. He'd been little more than a fretting mother hen when it was his pokemon charging off and double-dog-daring everyone in the vicinity to fight--but now that Sam believed his pokemon could win, Aiden very much wanted to try. The logical part of his brain screamed that Carolina was not in a condition to fight yet (no matter what she said), least of all against Sam's pokemon. She couldn't fly at full speed until she was fully recovered, so a fight against another bird was hopeless, and a Bagon would take basically no damage from a three and a half pound bird's tackle attack. But the emotional part of his brain... Oh dear. He wanted to watch his pokemon fight. He wanted to watch them win.

One day, Aiden. One day, he told himself, trying to temper his enthusiasm. Luckily for his saner side, Sam started talking about the gem quest, which made for a good distraction. "I haven't worried about the purpose much, honestly," he admitted. Carolina was still glaring at him but hovering midair for so long was tiring so she reluctantly moved up and over, so she could perch atop his shoulder. The action made Aiden grin, even as her talons dug painfully into his shoulder.

Aiden hadn't known Carolina for very long, but he knew her well enough to know that the Pidgey's argument didn't have a Vanillite's chance in hell of affecting the Fletchling. He entertained the thought anyway. "Some regional variants of Sevipers have been known to eat their young," he said with a wink. Carolina snorted. "If I had fangs, I'd fuckin' be doin' that too. Those bitches got the right idea. Motherhood is awful, especially when all your kids are insufferable little turds."

Aiden shook his head and tried to hold back his laughter. He couldn't quite manage it, so he reached a hand up and stroked the bird's back to distract from the fact that he was laughing at her. Carolina Reaper leaned into the pleasant sensation but it did nothing to dissuade her from her latest tirade. "I've met some turds smellier than my kids recently, though." She was looking at Aiden, not Peach, but it was clear enough who that last bit was directed at.

The idea of battling was still tugging at the back of his brain and with that in mind, Aiden looked back at Sam. "Do you guys battle much, then?" He hoped Sam would say yes--if so, the follow-up question would be an offer to battle at some point in the future. (Aiden needed to see his pokemon in action first, either against wild pokemon or in practice skirmishes against each other. He wasn't the sort of trainer to throw untested pokemon against other trainers. It was one of the many qualities Carolina hated about him.)

WORDS → 480
POKEMON → carolina the fletchling
NOTES → wizz • +5 ruby gems (15)

So Sam was a new trainer, too, eh? "Same," Aiden agreed. "Not the assistant part, though, god no," he tacked on quickly. "Me and my high school diploma'd be laughed out of the interview for that one." There was no science or research or anything academic in Aiden's future, he was quite sure of that. His parents had demanded that he graduate high school before he could run off to train pokemon. Once that diploma was in his hand, off Aiden ran.

"So if you're working with a professor, I guess you're one of those smart people?" Genius level, maybe? "Assistant" was a low tier job title, but even Aiden Gallagher and his privileged self had heard about the job market. Ten years of experience and two PhDs for an entry level position, all that garbage. For better or worse, Aiden wasn't interested in fancy degrees or titles. Nah. Fire pokemon were all he was after. "Why'd they send you out as a trainer? Is that a common thing for them? I always figured it was mostly lab work. Like..." He waved his hands aimlessly in the air. "Microscopes, or whatever." His chemistry lab in high school was probably not a good sample of what actual real scientists did, but it was all he had to go on.

Carolina Reaper, meanwhile, gave an enormous (and mostly exaggerated) yawn at the change in conversation topic. "If y'all shitbrains are gonna waste your whole day talking, I'm going to do some actual work." And with that announcement, she spread her small wings and leaped off of Aiden's shoulder. She flew up and up and up. Without Quick Attack in her arsenal, her ascent was slower than she would have liked.

One of these days, the little dumbass she called a trainer would maybe let her fight (or she'd leave if he didn't) and Quick Attack was the first move she'd learn. And fuck the whole damn world if anyone thought Carolina would let herself fall out of shape before learning that fun trick. No ma'am, Carolina was older than most pokemon her level but she wasn't stupid. Once she leveled up a few times, it would be lights out for whatever numskull she was fighting.

WORDS → 371
POKEMON → carolina the fletchling
NOTES → wizz • +5 ruby gems (20)